








































Class T Z 7 
Rnnk , M 











RED MESA 






NILTCI GOT ONE GLIMPSE OF VASQUEZ, STANDING WITH HIS 

RIFLE POISED. 




r 

RED MESA 

A TALE OF THE SOUTHWEST 


BY 

WARREN H. IVfILLER v 


AUTHOR OF 

''the black panther of the navaho/* 
"the ring-necked grizzly," etc. 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
NEW YORK : : 1923 : : LONDON 







COPYRIGHT^ 1923, BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


! 

/ 

I 


PRINTED IK THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 


SEP 19'23 ^ 


1^ 


C1A759020 ^ 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. 

Canon Honanki 



PAGE 

I 

II. 

The Lure of the Mine . 



25 

III. 

Vasquez .... 



47 

IV. 

PiNACATE .... 



70 

V. 

Red Mesa .... 



95 

VI. 

The Soul of the Indian 



119 

VII. 

Blaze. 



143 

VIII. 

Hano. 



166 

IX. 

The Sun Dance 



187 

X. 

The Defense of Red Mesa 



208 

XI. 

Gold versus Nature 



226 

XII. 

Out of the Desert . 

• 

• 

244 


















RED MESA 


CHAPTER I 
CANON HONANKI 

A BOVE a timbered valley in the southwest 
rises a towering wall of gorgeous cliffs 
^ such as only Arizona can produce. Their 

rock pinnacles are banded with color—red strata, 
ochre, blue, green, and white—^all in wavy horizontal 
lines like layer cake. These long walls were scoured 
clean and smooth long ago by prehistoric water 
action. They were broken with deep fissures— 
fissures that now cleave the cliff from top to bottom 
—‘^chimneys^' that mean seven hundred feet of sheer 
ascent to him who would dare scale these heights. 

Two riders sat gazing up, searching this cliff face, 
^vhile an Airedale dog of huge and leonine aspect 
prowled about in the creek bottom near them, inves¬ 
tigating this and that with snuffing nose. 

‘That cliff dwelling is up here somewhere, accord- 

I 


RED MESA 


ing to Doctor Fewkes’ map, John,” said the smaller 
and rangier of the pair, his puckered-up black eyes 
never leaving off their scrutiny of the cliff face. 
“Think we’ll find her?” 

The older man, a great, bony and leathery cow¬ 
man, who might have hailed from anywhere in the 
west from Montana to Arizona, took off his som¬ 
brero and mopped a sweaty brow with the loose 
end of his bandanna. 

“Search me 1 ” he grinned. “Fm a cowman, not no 
prophet—as the greenhorn axman said when the 
lumber boss as’t him which way his tree was goin’ 
to fall.” He looked lugubriously up at the cliff, 
shaking his head solemnly. “It’d take a horned toad 
with suckers on his feet to bust her, Siddy son.” 

The youth tugged determinedly at the fine fuzz 
of black mustache that adorned his upper lip. “Ho- 
nanki Ruins or bust—that’s our motto, John!” he 
retorted, his black eyes twinkling merrily at the 
reluctant cowman. “Here’s Fewkes’ map, with the 
ruins marked ‘Inaccessible’ on it, and, by jerry, weWe 
here, if the map’s right. They’re somewhere above 
us, and it’s up to us to bust ’em.” 

“Yaas,” said Big John, shifting his weight to the 
nigh stirrup to give the white horse under him a 


2 


CANON HONANKI 


change of load. ^‘Somethin’ hed orter be done about 
it, thet’s shore! You mosey up—-an’ I’ll hold yore 
hoss 1” 

All of which preliminaries usually meant that Big 
John really meant to take the lead in climbing him¬ 
self once the ruins were found. Sid knew that all 
this feigned reluctance about climbing cliffs was 
mere camouflage on Big John’s part. He urged his 
pinto across the canon so as to get a better view of 
the cliff face. He wanted to size up that canon 
wall first, for he knew that the only way to keep Big 
John off that cliff was to tie him down, which “ain’t 
done.” The two had been boon comrades for a long 
time; first up in Montana on the hunt for the Ring- 
Necked Grizzly, later in the Canon de Chelly region 
where the Black Panther of the Navaho had met his 
end. That expedition had been Sid’s start in prac¬ 
tical ethnology. Now they were down in the White 
River reservation of the Apache, seeking out ruins 
that had been noted by Dr. Fewkes of the Smith¬ 
sonian but had been left unexplored for lack of time 
and facilities. 

“There it is I” rang out the youth’s voice excitedly 
from across Canon Honanki (Bear Canon). “Come 
over here, John 1 ” 


3 


RED MESA 


The huge cowman trotted his white mustang over 
to where Sid had halted his pinto under a big western 
pine. Far up, at least three hundred feet above the 
floor of the valley, they saw holes like swallow’s 
nests pierced in the cliff at irregular intervals. They 
seemed small and round and black as ink, and near 
them were carved on the rock odd circular spirals, 
lightning zigzags, primitive horses, apparently all 
legs, and geometrical armed-and-legged designs in¬ 
tended to represent men. Ragged holes further 
along on the cliff face showed that galleries 
and passageways ran in behind the living rock up 
there. These natural caves, common enough in 
Arizona, had been scoured out by water action in 
geologic times. 

But it was a fearful place for human beings to 
attempt to climb to! Tall perpendicular folds in the 
cliff face cast their black shadows on the surrounding 
stone, the cracks beginning and ending nowhere. 
There were impracticable clefts, ledges that shaded 
off to flat precipice faces, dents and scoriations not 
over two feet deep, yet they seemed to be all the 
footholds for climbing that the place afforded. 

‘‘Gorry!—a cavate dwelling!” whooped Sid, over¬ 
joyed. “The kind that is built in the solid rock 

4 


CANON HONANKI 


instead of being made of stone slabs, John,” he ex¬ 
plained with the ethnologist’s enthusiasm. 

Big John grinned. “Gawsh!” he exploded. 
s’pose that humans once tried to live in such places— 
but eagles would know better! Nawthin’ll do but 
we gotto bust her, eh?” 

“Yep,” said Sid confidently. “A shaman or a 
pueblo priest lived up there once. Sort of hermit, 
you know. Holy man. If that old scout lived there 
we ought to be able to climb up once .—What think?” 

“He didn’t come pilgriming down to shoot up 
the gulch muy plentiful. I’m bettin’!” averred Big 
John sardonically. “I’ll tell ye, Sid; thar’s only one 
way to bust her, and that’s to make a string of long 
ladders, same as he done. You don’t get me off 
this hoss on no fly-creepin’ climb without a-doin* 
jest that—savvy?” 

“Oh, thunder!” exclaimed Sid impatiently. “It’d 
take two days of perishing work. Le’s try to get 
up this cleft here.” He pointed to the beginnings 
of a practical ascent. 

“No!” barked Big John, and his tone was final. 
“The Colonel, yore pappy, he’d stake me out an* 
build a fire on me tummy ef I let ye do any sech 
thing. Thet halter’s still waitin’ for you, Sid, I’ll 

5 


BED MESA 


admit, to save having it proved on me, but I ain’t 
aimin’ to cheat your friends out of their necktie 
party none. We camps right here an’ does the job 
proper, sabe, lil’ hombre?” 

Sid acquiesced, after a little further study of the 
cliff. There was a tall vertical cleft that led up to 
the swallow’s nest holes by a series of breaks and 
rises. It was easy to reconstruct the old shaman’s 
route by imagining the proper ladders set up so as 
to negotiate a number of these vertical rises. They 
could be made of slender lodgepole pine, with the 
branches left on for steps in place of the heavier 
logs with notched steps which the aborigines had 
used. And not over half a dozen of them would 
be needed altogether. It was worth doing, to ‘‘bust” 
an “Inaccessible.” 

Making camp in that rainless country was a 
simple matter. Sid simply selected a pleasant site 
on a knoll down the canon overlooking the brook 
under a canopy of huge pines, while Big John un¬ 
saddled both horses and took them to the nearest 
grass plot, staking them out and leaving Blaze, his 
Airedale, on guard. The dog had been a present 
from Colonel Colvin after the Black Panther trip. 
He had the noted sagacity of his breed, and with a 

6 


CANON HONANKI 


year’s hunting experience with Ruler, the giant 
coonhound of that expedition, had become a most 
devoted and dependable “pardner” on all their hunts. 
After merely piling the sleeping and cooking gear 
and hanging up their food bags above the rodent 
zone, Sid was ready to go ladder cutting. 

The White Mountain region is pine forest, 
sparsely timbered, the trees not crowded or packed 
so densely as in eastern forest growth. As a result, 
the mountains, which resemble much the rounded 
and rolling Alleghanies of the east, seem stippled 
with individual trees instead of banked in mossy 
green as with closely growing timber. In the river 
valleys, however, there are thickets as dense as in 
any well watered clime, so Sid lost no time in get¬ 
ting into such a pine grove armed with his light 
belt ax. That light, little long-handled ax of his 
was far more efficient than any sort of hatchet. It 
would drop a four-inch pole thirty feet high almost 
as quickly as a full ax. 

Before the first tree crashed down Big John had 
joined him. 

‘‘This here Pinus Contorta (sounds like Julius 
Seizher only it ain’t) is the boy that will bust her 
quick, Siddy boy,” he laughed, rolling up his sleeves 

7 


RED MESA 


and baring a forearm like a lean ham. ‘‘You give 
a leetle feller like me elbowroom!” He took a full 
ax in one fist and smote a tree with it like chopping 
with a hatchet. About two judgmatical cuts sufficed 
to send it crashing down, whereat the giant cowman 
started after another. Sid saw that he would have 
his hands full just trimming the felled ones so he 
went for their boughs with his small ax. 

“You cut off them tops whar’ there^s somethin’ 
substantial to it, Sid,” rang out Big John’s voice 
from the timber as he sent another pine tumbling 
about the youth’s ears. “Remember that I weigh a 
pound or two more’n a straw hat, son!” 

“Help me put up this first one, now, John, she’s 
ready,” announced Sid, struggling to lift the trunk 
clear of the underbrush. Big John came over and 
heaved the whole tree unceremoniously up on his 
shoulder. With Sid guiding the lean end they made 
for the cliff. Pushing and panting they up-ended it 
and stood it ladderwise in a vertical fissure which 
gave on a ledge above. Sid swarmed up the short 
branch stubs, climbed out on the ledge, and waved 
his arms down to Big John below. 

“Looks like one of us’d have to shinny up and 
haul the next one with a lariat,” he called down. 

8 


CANON HONANKI 


‘^Son, I got an idee—ef she don’t get away while 
I’m picketin’ her down,” said Big John. “You git 
up thar and hang my lariat honda over that point 
of rock, sabe, an’ then we’ll run yore lariat through 
the honda and snake up the next pole by one of the 
bosses.” 

He got both lariats up from camp while Sid 
waited. Presently he returned, to cast it up with 
the sure whirling pitch of the born rope artist. Sid 
snatched it in and hauled his own up by the end of 
the other. Then he coiled both, attached them to his 
belt and started up the next cleft. The very pockets 
in the rock where feet of the ancient log ladders used 
to rest were easy to pick out as he climbed. What 
men had done a man could do I By the time he had 
everything fixed and the honda, or brass eye of the 
lariat, hung with the other rove through it. Big John 
was below with a horse and a fresh pole. It came 
snaking up as the cowman led the horse away, haul¬ 
ing on the lower end by the lariat tied to a cinch 
strap above the pony’s back. 

Sid set the pole and climbed higher to the next 
ledge so that they could repeat the maneuver with a 
third pole. This was the limit for that horse-hoist¬ 
ing stunt, however, for he was now up over eighty 

9 


RED MESA 


feet and there was not rope enough in camp to 
double through the next honda. Big John yelled up 
as he tied on the fourth pole and then he led the 
horse back to graze again. 

In a few minutes Sid saw him climbing up below 
him. He had no fear of height himself. That all 
belongs to the tenderfoot aloft for the first time. 
It attacks man in a sickening sort of stage fright 
at first, whether on cliff, high building, or the upper 
rigging of a ship. After a time familiarity wears 
it off and in its place there comes a cheerfulness 
over the immense outlook, the height and the distant 
scenery of it all; a joyous sense of freedom that 
must be part of the bird’s outlook on life. He 
waited for Big John on the ledge, looking about him 
interestedly. It was narrow but not dangerous up 
here. An old woman might have wanted a rail 
fence or something, he thought, but things were 
done on such a huge scale on this cliff that this very 
ledge that looked from below like a mere trace 
proved up here to be nearly three feet wide. Plenty 1 
—Thousands! as the facetious Big John would have 
said. 

Presently that cheerful son of Montana arrived, 
breathing heavily but entirely at ease. “Waal, son, 


10 


CANON HONANKI 


it ain’t goin’ to freeze up an’ snow on our scheme 
jest yit! Tail on to this yere lariat and we’ll yank 
up another pole.” 

They hauled away on the long rope which the 
cowman had tied to the butt of the fourth pole 
while down there. It weighed perhaps fifty pounds 
—nothing at all to mountain men! After a period 
of grunting effort the butt end came up over the 
ledge and the pole was gathered in and laid length¬ 
wise. They then started on to prospect for the next 
fissure. 

“Gosh durn it, how come, son? Hyar be stone 
steps leadin’ up back hyar, or you can steal my hoss!” 
came back Big John’s voice in the lead as they 
rounded the face of the huge pinnacle of rock. Sid 
hurried to catch up. That simplified matters a whole 
lot! 

“Look yonder, John!” he cried excitedly, as they 
climbed up the row of stone pockets, “one more 
pole finishes us! See that hole in the wall across 
the crevasse?” 

“Sho’ I do! But Sid, you ought to show some 
respect for the naked truth, son—which-same 
means we’re busted! Yore hole’s across a no-bot- 


II 


RED MESA 


tomed chasm, hombre, an’ we ain’t flies nor yit 
eagles, nohow!” 

Sid climbed more notched steps that led up over a 
smooth billow of rock and then eyed the hole oppo¬ 
site, measuring the distance carefully. Here, evi¬ 
dently, began those scoured-out caves and tunnels 
in the living rock which led up to the cavate dwelling. 
There had been a log bridge across here once, but 
it had long since rotted through and perished. 

“Let’s drop our fourth pole across and then, 
we’ve got her, John—that’s the answer!” declared 
Sid. 

Big John shook his head solemnly. “Ef she 
breaks an’ lets this gent down, they ain’t goin’ to be 
no come-back, that’s sartain! No sir, nawthin’ 
stirring!” 

“Oh, shucks—where’s that pole, John? Le’s get 
her up here and let her fall over anyhow!” exclaimed 
Sid hopefully. “Maybe we can hit the hole opposite 
with its other end.” 

“I’ll try that much,” agreed Big John. “I ain’t 
purty but I’m shore strong—^as the bohunk said 
when they as’t him to tote a saw log.” And without 
more ado he retraced his steps and picked up the 


12 


CANON HONANKI 


pole. With it on his shoulder he came teetering 
along the ledge. 

“Thar, Sid—miss an’ out! We got jest one 
shot,” he grunted, standing the pole up and aiming 
its fall carefully. 

“Wait!” shouted Sid. “Tie the lariat to the mid¬ 
dle of it! You’ll feel better if you’ve got that to 
keep her from breaking,” he suggested. 

“Center shot, son; plumb center! Shore you got 
almost human intelligence!” grinned Big John, low¬ 
ering the pole again. Sid seemed to have an even 
better idea than that, now. He coiled the lariat and 
cast it up, to fall around a rock pinnacle above them. 
Then he tied its other end near the center of the 
pole and they let it fall slowly, paying out rope 
while Big John guided it by main strength until 
its other end rested square in the jagged black pit 
of the cave across the chasm from where they were 
standing. 

“Ain’t afraid of nawthin’, now, with that good 
old rawhide lariat holdin’ her up,” declared Big John, 
beginning to climb across. Sid followed him, once 
the heavy bulk of the cowman had left the pole on 
the other side. Below him dropped away an endless 
shadowy chasm, with the tiny pines and firs of the 

13 


RED MESA 


valley visible hot in the sunlight far below. On 
both sides towered above him the huge smooth walls 
of the chimney made by the pinnacle and its neigh¬ 
bors. Sid cast a mere glance at the prospect below, 
and then climbed over swiftly and joined Big John 
in the black depths of the tunnel. 

It was some time before their eyes became accus¬ 
tomed to the dim light. Up and up inside the living 
rock the narrow fissure climbed. Old steps, cut in 
the rock or built of flat stone slabs, guided them. 
Here and there light was let in by those irregular 
ragged holes in the cliff wall which they had seen 
from below. 

‘‘No one but a shaman would live here,*^ declared 
Sid, speaking ethnologically; “a basket of corn, some 
dried meat and a string of peppers would last him 
a whole season. But there’s water up here some¬ 
where.” 

“Hed orter be!” said Big John laconically. “This 
place’s as dry as the professor’s book, whar the dust 
flewed out of the pages when you opened it. Be¬ 
sides, that Indian’d grow a beard a mile long while 
he’s jest gittin’ down out’n hyar fer a drink!” 

There was water up there. After a long climb, 
when their aching knees positively refused to lift for 

14 


CANON HONANKI 


another step, they came to a little basin hollowed 
out of the rock by human hands. A thin trace of 
water came weeping down from somewhere in the 
interior here, to lose itself and evaporate on the out¬ 
side cliff face. A spruce growing out of the crevice, 
which they could see through the next window, 
showed that all that water was being preempted by 
just that one tree. A spruce seed had found it some¬ 
how. Nature leaves nothing unutilized. 

A blaze of light now lit up the chasm ahead. The 
gallery in the rock became more open and led up¬ 
ward to a wide door cut out of the rock. Here the 
shaman of long ago had looked out on the frailties 
and follies of the world below him, serene, indiffer¬ 
ent, meditating on the destinies of his people. Those 
times surely needed one wise man to sit apart and 
do the thinking for them all, for in this pueblo 
country the hostile and warlike Apaches had been 
fearsome invaders even before the time of the 
Spaniards. How long before that they and the 
Navaho had come down from the far north no man 
knows. But they found the peaceful and sedentary 
pueblo Indians an easy prey, and gradually they 
drove them all out of these cliff dwellings in the 
mountains to build themselves defensive villages on 

15 


RED MESA 


the high mesas of the Painted Desert to the north. 

Sid and Big John stopped at that natural door- 
,way to look out below. Canon Honanki lay a 
green-spired paradise below them. Bare, barren 
cliffs, streaked with color, rose opposite. A short 
way down the valley the horses could be picked out 
grazing placidly. The watchful Blaze lay near them 
and he rose and barked at sight of his master, his 
faint volleys echoing up the cliffs. 

“Now for Mr. Inaccessible—the cavate dwelling!’^ 
exclaimed Sid triumphantly. He led on upward un¬ 
til he came to a low door built in a stone wall laid 
up without mortar. Entering it, they saw that a 
round window cut through the cliff stone lit up the 
small cave room. Baskets, finely woven, of a texture 
and quality seldom seen nowadays, greeted Sid’s de¬ 
lighted eyes. There were shallow marriage and 
ceremonial baskets; bottle-shaped ones waterproofed 
with pinon gum, the kind now called tus and used in 
medicine dances; large granary baskets still filled 
with dry kernels of blue, black, red, and white corn. 
A few black pottery jars, decorated with white 
lightning zigzags, stood in the corners. Strings of 
corn ears, red peppers, and dried onions, all musty 

i6 


CANON HONANKI 


and shriveled, hung from poles let into the roof of 
the cave. 

*‘The old bird was a rain-maker, all right,” said 
Big John, pointing irreverently at the zigzags on the 
jars and baskets. “Claimed he invented the light¬ 
ning, all-same as Benjamin Franklin.” 

But Sid did not answer. Instead his eyes were 
riveted in sheer astonishment on the smooth rock 
wall of the cave, and he grabbed Big John’s sleeve 
and pointed, speechless with wonder. 

“Gorry!—Look there, John!” he finally found 
breath to exclaim. “Here is the last place a fellow 
would expect to see the writing of a white man. 
I’ll say!” 

“Well, I’ll be durned 1 ” growled Big John, peering 
at the letters with Sid. 

Written on the wall, in red earth letters and still 
as bright as the day they were made, was—a name! 
a Spanish name! 

Fra Pedro Del Vacas, 1680. 

“Can you beat it!” cried Sid, breathlessly. “Gorry, 
what a find!—Le’s see, John,” he went on excitedly, 
“1680 was the year of the big massacre, wasn’t it?” 

“Search me!” said Big John whimsically. “All 

17 


RED MESA 


I know about them greasers is that you shore don’t 
have to oil yore bullets none to slip ’em through their 
feathers.” 

‘"Sure it was 1680!” continued Sid, ignoring Big 
John’s observation upon our Mexican neighbors. 
‘‘That year all the tribes rose against their Spanish 
friars. Most of them were murdered or martyred— 
especially those that the Apaches got hold of. This 
Fra came up here to the old shaman for refuge. 
Why did he write that inscription then? Because 
he was dying, of course! Escaped from the Apaches 
somehow, wounded perhaps, and was carried up 
here by the pueblo people. The Spanish missionaries 
did not carve their initials on every rock. He left 
his name for the next missionary to find, if ever 
one should visit this pueblo again. It means some¬ 
thing, John. We’ll look for pueblo graves, next, 
and maybe get some more light on it.” 

Sid’s idea of searching for graves might seem 
astounding to any one but an ethnologist. But the 
richest prehistoric relics are always obtained from 
exhumed graves, usually located near some shaman’s 
cave. The body was always mummied, and with it 
were buried most of the pueblo Indian’s possessions. 
Here the early cotton blankets, yucca sandals, bas- 

18 


CANON HONANKI 


(cets, pottery, and weapons are found in a tolerable 
state of preservation, and they all show that the pre¬ 
historic pueblo dwellers lived very much as their 
descendants do to-day. 

Big John was used to Sid^s intense enthusiasms in 
ethnological matters and was accustomed to follow¬ 
ing him around—to see that he “didn’t break his fool 
neck an’ so cheat that rope that’s waitin’ fer him” 
as he always put it. He bent his tall frame in pursuit 
as Sid dodged out of the house and darted for a 
deep and dusty grotto that lay behind it. A huge 
horizontal fissure, not over four feet high, had been 
worn out here by the waters, undermining the cliffs 
above for a considerable distance. A stratum of 
mud, long since dried to dust, covered the floor of 
the fissure. Closely dotted over it were slabs of 
stone, under each of which one would find a small 
stone kiva or dry well. The mummy would be dis¬ 
covered sitting upright in it, swathed about with 
cotton blanketing made long before the first wool 
from the first sheep that gave it was stolen from the 
Spaniards by the Navaho. Generally also the 
mummy was covered with ceremonial basketry. But 
Sid passed them all by, for the present. What he 
was searching for now was a white man’s grave. 

19 


RED MESA 


And, far back under the rock he found it, a long 
mound with a rude cross set in the dust at its head. 
A single flat stone lay across the center of the 
mound. 

Raising it, the persistent Indian burial customs 
proved to have been still adhered to. A long black 
robe, with a ghastly skull peeping from the cowl, 
lay flat on the bottom of the niche, which was a sort 
of stone coffin, its sides lined with stone slabs built 
in shallow walls precisely like the Indian rivas. The 
top was roofed over with stone, on which the earth 
had been mounded up as the white priest had evi¬ 
dently directed it should be. There was nothing 
else in the grave. Nothing, that is, but a flat slab 
of pottery, lying across the dead friar’s chest! 

Its square shape at once attracted Sid as unusual 
and not Indian. He picked it up with queer thrills 
running all through him. A message from that 
white man of long ago! For there was writing 
graven on the clay, and the three letters “D. O. M.” 
stood at the head of the plaque. 

'*A Dominican friar, he was, John,” said Sid, 
reverently. He began to read aloud the sonorous 
Latin written on the plaque, conjuring up his for¬ 
gotten Caesar of high-school days. 


20 


CANON HONANKI 


“Whafs that stuff, huh?” inquired Big John. 
“Sounds like spig talk, but ’tain't. Vm a hundred 
per cent American, Sid, I am, an’ I don’t like it,” he 
growled, shaking his head sturdily. 

“Can’t make it out myself,” confessed Sid, after 
reading it a little farther. He found that he had 
forgotten his Latin so much that merely to pro¬ 
nounce the words was an effort. “Here’s a few that 
I do know, though, John: 'Aurum et Argentum* 
that’s gold and silver; 'Pinacate/ 'Sonoyta/ those are 
places; *Papagoii, the Papagoes; 'Mesa Rubra* that’s 
Red Mesa-” 

“Never heard tell of it,” declared Big John, 
promptly. “Thar’s a red mesa up Zuhi way, but 
there’s no gold or silver thar; an’ Pinacate is a long 
thirsty ride down over the lava country into Mex¬ 
ico. Ain’t no mesas in that country nohow. She’s 
all red lava saw teeth an’ spiny choyas—if you 
asks me.” 

“It’s an old Spanish mine —that’s what the 
plaque’s all about!” shouted Sid, excitedly. “Some 
of the Papagoes must have told this old fra about 
a gold and silver mine, located in Red Mesa down 
Pinacate way—say, Scotty will have to hear of this- 


21 



RED MESA 


John !’^ whooped Sid, carried away by the enthusiasm 
of the moment. 

Big John shook his head solemnly: ‘‘Son, folks 
has died of thirst in thousands, chasing lost Spanish 
mines in that country! Santa Fe’s full of old priest 
reports like this yer. The Indians shore did stuff 
’em with gauzy tales! Thar’s mineral down thar. 
I’ll ’low; but after ye find it, what ye got? Re¬ 
minds me of the recipe for cookin’ a fish-duck. Ye 
take an’ soaks him in three kinds of soup; bile him 
four days; stuff him with an apple an’ a onion; tie 
a bunch of celery ’round his neck, wrap him in a 
couple of slabs of bacon; stick in a hunk of garlic; 
add salt, pepper, and a bottle of wine; bake him 
three hours—an’ presto, the gosh-darn fish-duck is 
gone! That’s how a feller feels when he finds a 
mine in that country, Sid; ye cayn’t git the miner’l 
put nohow!” 

Sid’s laughter pealed out. “Well, we’ll hunt up 
old Scotty just the same and then go get some one 
to translate this Latin. Scotty’ll just go crazy over 
this tablet, and he needs the money, John. We can 
come back here for the Indian relics some other time. 
Scotty and Niltci are prospecting down in the Santa 
Catalinas for mineral, right now, you know-” 


22 



CANON HONANKI 


they won’t find nawthin’ down thar thet 
ain’t been found long ago, jest as I told him,” in¬ 
terjected Big John. 

*‘Sure! We’ll ride down there and give him this 
tablet. It will be a life-saver for old Scotty! Red 
Mesa or bust! John—how’s that for a new motto?” 

‘‘Looks handsome, but she ain’t edible,” said Big 
John, enigmatically. 

But Sid just couldn’t get over his enthusiasm for 
his chum Scotty’s sake about this Latin tablet. What 
a find for good old Les! That mine would be his 
big chance! Friendship was sweet; to be able to do 
something for a chum was keen pleasure. He sat 
down and went on studying over the tablet, balking 
at strange Latin words, digging up more of them 
out of his memories of his school Caesar. The old 
pottery plaque fascinated him. He kept speculating 
about it, how it came to be made, where the old fra 
had got his information about the mine. What an 
ancient old story this was! 

“This fra used to live with the cavate dwellers 
here, John, I tell you! He made this plaque and 
had them fire it when they baked their own pottery. 
Imperishable record, you see. It’s a real find, I tell 
you! One of those lost Spanish mines that really is 

23 


RED MESA 


so! 'In regione PapagoiV that’s the Papago coun¬ 
try of Pinacate, all right. 'XXI milia S -0 ah 
Pinacate' plain as shootin’, twenty-one miles north¬ 
east from Pinacate,’ 'Mesa Rubra' —there’s a hill 
that looks like a red mesa down there—that’s the 
dope! Gee! What a start for good old Scotty! 
Le’s go! We’ll ride straight for his camp in the 
Catalinas!” 

Big John grinned saturnine grins as he deposited 
the pottery plaque in the small rucksack without 
which he never left his horse. Then he got up and 
followed the eager Sid down the long, dark ascent of 
steps up which they had come. 


CHAPTER II 


THE LURE OF THE MINE 

H T^S panning out mighty low-grade stuff!— 
H Dog-gone it 

The young man who made this ejaculation, 
and in a most discouraged tone, too, was slender 
and wiry, with sandy reddish hair surmounting a 
Scotch cast of features. His face was freckled and 
sunburned. The inextinguishable hope of youth 
still flickered in his blue eyes, but there was worry, 
anxiety, there, too—the sign of that nagging, can¬ 
kering care that keeps a fellow thin. 

He shook his head as he held up a test tube in its 
wooden holder to the sunlight. 

‘Won’t do!” he muttered. “Anybody can find 
a mine in Arizona—but few can find a paying one.” 

He looked about him at the silent and colorful 
mountains surrounding him, hopeless misery in his 
eyes. They had no answer for him! The brush 
sunshade that he and the Indian boy who was his 
companion had established was Scotty Henderson’s 

25 



RED MESA 


base camp for mine prospecting. Our readers may 
have met him before—on the trip for the Ring¬ 
necked Grizzly in Montana or when after the Black 
Panther of the Painted Desert country of Arizona. 

Leslie Henderson—Scotty’s real name—^had a 
heavy load to carry, for a youth of nineteen. It 
weighed nothing physically but mentally it was a 
burden far beyond his years. And the letter from 
his mother that he was now carrying in a hip pocket 
of his riding breeches had added a sickening load 
upon a mind already worn with anxiety. It had 
told him, as gently and self-sacrificingly as possible, 
of his mother’s decision to sell the old Henderson 
place back east. The cost of living had gradually 
come to exceed Major Henderson’s pension, which 
was all the Great War had left them of his father, 
the good old Doctor. To a woman used to com¬ 
forts and a roof over her head as a matter of course, 
to say nothing of the ancestral associations of that 
homestead, that decision of Scotty’s mother was 
a far heavier blow to her than her words would 
admit. Delicately put, it meant in plain words that 
Scotty would either have to strike a paying mine 
claim soon or else give up his heritage of independ¬ 
ence, that heritage that every real man claims as his 

26 


THE LURE OF THE MINE 


birthright, and take a position somewhere in some 
great mining corporation. And the outlook was 
pretty black, now. 

''No go, Niltci!’* groaned Scotty, emptying the 
green fluid in the test tube with a gesture of dis- 
couragement, "we’ll have to break camp and 
move on.” 

With that decision the hopelessness of all this 
endless prospecting surged over Scotty in an over¬ 
whelming wave. Arizona had been combed all over 
for mines! There was plenty of this sort of thing, 
this scanty and scattered deposit of copper car¬ 
bonate, poor in per cent of metal, all through its 
mountains. The real thing was far different. Not 
impossible to locate; for each year, even now, sees 
some new and fabulous lode opened up. But the 
scattered, thin deposit of this gulch would take a 
mountain railroad to develop it and the most ex¬ 
pensive of electric process works to reduce it to 
metal. Take this ore back east and men could make 
money out of it, but that "take,” that train-haul 
which would cost more than the ore was worth, was 
the rub! 

For a moment a gorgeous vista of temptation 
opened up before Scotty. All he really needed to 

27 


RED MESA 


do to become rich was to go east with some of these 
picked specimens and float a ‘‘paper” copper mine, 
the kind that robs thousands of poor people of their 
earnings by false and visionary “literature”; that 
were never intended to do more than line the pockets 
of those scoundrels who make their living cheating 
the public that way. 

But the mute reproach of the silent mountains to 
that temptation was enough for Scotty. Even the 
poor prospector with burro and pick who had come 
this way before had been too honest for that! He, 
some one of him, had without doubt explored this 
very valley long before Scotty; he had looked over 
this ore and gone on, knowing well that in practice it 
would never pay. 

“Nothing doing!” said Scotty to himself, his hon¬ 
est soul recoiling in horror before the gilded pros¬ 
pect of a wildcat mine floated back east. “But, while 
there’s life there’s dope!” he grinned. “Where 
next? Dashed if I know! Le’s break camp any¬ 
how, Niltci.” 

The Indian youth grunted inquiringly from where 
he squatted, with the stoic patience of the Indian, 
under their brush shade. He pointed a coppery fin¬ 
ger out at a lariat rope stretched between two mes- 

28 


THE LURE OF THE MINE 


quites in the sunlight of the hill slope. On it hung 
a ragged collection of meat strips, like stockings on 
a clothesline. They still glistened, raw and red, in 
the hot blaze of the cloudless sky overhead. 

''Charqui no done,'' he demurred, shaking his 
head. “Three sleeps yet." 

He was referring to their store of dried venison; 
“jerky" as the cowmen call it, only he used the orig¬ 
inal Spanish name for it, charqui —dried meat. 

“Gee, I'd forgot about our grub stake! Hope," 
observed Scotty, “springs infernal in the human 
breast, Niltci! Grub's our real problem, now. 
Let’s let the mine wait and play hunters a bit, eh?” 

As if to answer him the musical notes of a hound 
belled down from a distant mountain flank. There 
was sparse, dry-soil timber all over these hills, pinon, 
spruce, stunted western yellow pine and the inev¬ 
itable aspens. The hills were bare and bony, and 
they blazed with orange and lavender color, for it 
was November, but there was game in the valley 
timber, lots of it, deer, cougar, bobcat, and an occa¬ 
sional cinnamon bear. Wild turkey inhabited the 
depths of the canons, so plentiful that they formed 

the daily fresh meat of their camp in addition to 

29 


RED MESA 


the abundant trout which the Apaches disdained to 
catch and eat. 

Scotty listened a moment to the musical notes 
floating down through the valley. 

‘^There goes Ruler!’’ he cried. “Let’s get the 
horses and see what he’s after 1” 

Niltci, the Navaho boy, sprang to his feet grunting 
assent eagerly. His lithe form bounded down the 
slope towards a grass meadow, his red bandanna 
a blazing note of color, set off by an equally blaz¬ 
ing white cotton shirt contrasting with his long, 
dark blue leggins which sparkled with rows of bar¬ 
baric silver buttons. In a trice he was leading back 
Scotty’s chestnut mare and his own flea-bitten desert 
pony. Ever since Niltci had miraculously “disap¬ 
peared” during the religious excitements of his own 
people over the Black Panther, he had been with 
Scotty on his mining expeditions down here, far to 
the south in the Apache country of White River and 
far away from his own people. To his white friends 
he had owed his life that time—a debt that, to a 
Navaho, is never paid. 

He handed Scotty the mare’s halter and started 
deftly saddling his own pony. Ruler’s bays came 
unceasingly down through the mountains. Their 

30 


THE LURE OF THE MINE 

giant coonhound was of an indomitable persistence; 
he could be depended upon to follow that trail, what¬ 
ever it was, for days on end without relenting. 

‘*Up the coulee, Niltci!” shouted Scotty, vaulting 
his horse and clattering down the slope from camp. 
Behind him the fast hoofbeats of the Navaho’s 
pony followed. The mare crossed the creek bottom 
in a single jump and began working up the opposite 
flank in a long slant. On ahead an occasional yelp 
from Ruler gave inkling of his whereabouts. He 
was traveling fast, for the distance between them 
did not seem to close up. Frightened deer burst 
from cover and dashed down and across the stream 
bottom as they rode. A wild turkey, scared into 
flight by the showers of rolling stones struck loose 
by the horses, soared over the willows in the ravine 
and disappeared in a mass of thick green. 

Then, behind Scotty, Niltci grunted eagerly and 
made a queer sound that was half a yelp. 

''Yep! I see him, Niltci—cougar! There he 
goes!—regular old he-one!’’ gasped Scotty, jounc¬ 
ing in his saddle as he bent to drag his rifle from 
the holster. The mare shied as the heavy .405 
swung out around her flanks. Scotty’s knees 

31 


RED MESA 


gripped her fast and he let the horse go with the 
bridle reins dropped over the pommel. 

Ruler's deep tones now came back in explosive 
volleys. 

''Ow-ow-ow! Ow-ow-owT he sang, belling a hot 
trail. 

‘‘Heading north, up the canon!" yelled Scotty, 
galloping through the timber at full speed. *^Look 
at him goT 

He pointed out a running cougar far up on the 
yellow mountain sides, galloping along in easy 
bounds that seemed effortless. His tawny body 
doubled and stretched out in the queer lope of the 
cat tribe, now trotting with fast-moving feet, now 
humping up in the swinging bounds of the gallop. 
He seemed very like a buff and white household cat 
magnified to enormous size. His tail drooped be¬ 
hind, tapering from a thick root seemingly as wide 
as his hips to a ropy furry length that undulated 
as he sprang easily up over the rock ledges. 

“Gee, he's an old Tom, Niltci I" called back Scotty 
over his shoulder, —Go it. Ruler!" 

The big reddish brown coonhound yodeled in an¬ 
swer. He was racing along perhaps halfway be¬ 
tween them and the cougar, a red dot on the hot 

32 


THE LURE OF THE MINE 


sunlight, bellowing forth bursts of hound music as 
he ran. Above them soared the high walls of the 
canon, at least a mile up to the rim, yellow and blue- 
shadowed and dotted with dark green conifers. A 
hideous gulch, as it would look to a city dweller, 
terminated the canon walls as they narrowed, and 
it was cleft high above by a dry arroyo that was all 
stones and boulders. But to Scotty this was the 
finest place on earth, and it was a jolly old world 
anyhow—in spite of mines that failed to pan out! 
His one anxiety was that the cougar might reach 
the timber up on the rim plateau and then turn on 
Ruler before they could get up there. The cat 
was far up, near the head of the gulch, and going 
even faster than they were. Like tiny Japanese 
pines the distant trees on the rim seemed to welcome 
him, and, while the panting horses and men labored 
hard up the slope, the cougar bounded over a ledge 
of broken rock and was gone into the timber. 

Niltci grunted. **Wahl” he exclaimed disgustedly. 
‘Xose dog! Cougar kill him! No good! Take 
pony quick—^me climb up straight.^' 

His little horse clattered close behind and Scotty 
reached back for the bridle. Niltci vaulted from 
the saddle and with quick lithe movements he began 

33 


RED MESA 


to climb vertically up the canon slope. Scotty 
urged the mare on up the long slant that would 
bring him out somewhere near the beginning of the 
cleft that made the arroyo. He got two glimpses 
of Niltci's blue leggins swarming up over ver¬ 
tical ledges far above him; one brief sight of Ruler 
scrambling up over the rim ahead on the cougar^s 
trail; and then he was all alone, with the empty, 
silent, gorgeous mountains brooding majestically 
around him. With his passing and the shower of 
stones that his pony was sending down, they would 
return again to the eternal peace that was theirs. 
Apache, frontiersman, cavalryman, prospector, all in 
their turn had come and gone, to disturb their medi¬ 
tations for a brief moment, to pass on leaving these 
lonely cliffs and pines their silent and inscrutable 
witnesses. 

Scotty leaned over and whispered a word in the 
mare’s ear. The noble creature was giving him her 
best, with the boundless generosity and disinter¬ 
estedness of our four-footed hunting companions, 
but somehow, somewhere, she found it in her to call 
upon an extra burst of speed, some hidden reserve 
in response to her master’s whisper. The top of the 
gulch was near now. With distended nostrils, with 

34 


THE LURE OF THE MINE 


heaving flanks, and hoarse soughing breath the mare 
toiled up the last ledges and then vaulted over the 
rim. 

An open country of great pines was that plateau. 
Shadows and sunlight flecked the needles under the 
huge ponderosas. Scotty saw a white flash running 
like a deer through the tree trunks—Niltci, who 
could run faster than a horse for a short spurt. He 
was far ahead, and as for Ruler, only a deep ring¬ 
ing bay told of his whereabouts. 

^Wahoo! — Wahoo!'* sang out Scotty, his whoops 
intended more to let them know he was up and com¬ 
ing than anything else. The pony he led behind 
him snorted and whickered at sight of Niltci and 
Scotty let him go free at the hint. The flea-bitten 
little mustang immediately loped on ahead in a fast 
clatter. This urged the mare to top speed again, 
for she would let no horse pass her, if wind and 
legs could prevent it! 

Came a wild piercing screech and a savage miaul¬ 
ing on ahead somewhere. It sounded hoarse and 
ropy and vengeful; terrifying; intended to strike 
a paralysis of fright into the creature attacked. 
Scotty realized that the cougar had turned to the 
attack, finding that only a dog was following him. 

35 


RED MESA 


Then Ruler’s voice floated back, yelping and bark¬ 
ing in a mixed medley of pain and fury. Scotty 
knew instantly what had happened. The old Tom 
was mauling the dog unmercifully. He would kill 
Ruler if help did not come instantly. Ruler was 
all of eighty pounds in weight but the cougar was 
at least two hundred and fifty and could beat him 
easily in a single combat. 

A piercing whoop came from Niltci in answer to 
Ruler’s cry of distress. Scotty at once whipped out 
the heavy .405 and its thunderous roar rang out. 
The mare ducked and shied under its cannonlike re¬ 
ports, but Scotty fired again and again, for he hoped 
the sound of the bullets ripping through the timber 
would frighten the cat into treeing if not too sav¬ 
agely engaged with Ruler. 

As the mare burst out into an open glade, a wild 
drama under the pines across from it met Scotty’s 
eyes. Ruler was dodging and giving back, the cat 
following up and striking again and again with a 
tawny and scimitar-clawed forepaw—bright flashes 
in the sunlight as of curved steel hooks. Niltci was 
racing across the clearing, his bright knife flashing 
in the sun, his wild black hair streaming out behind 
him. He was sprinting his utmost to save the 

36 


THE LURE OF THE MINE 


hound but he would be too late if one of those ter¬ 
rible blows ever got home on Ruler! 

Scotty threw the mare back on her haunches and 
raised a wabbling rifle barrel. The scene through 
the sights was not reassuring. Dog and cougar 
were so instantly changing places that it was im¬ 
possible to fire. All this was happening with the 
quickness of thought, and Scotty felt reluctant to 
fire even a flash shot, for Ruler was whirling about 
so fast that he might run into the bullet while it 
was getting there. 

And then a queer thing happened. Another 
tawny and grizzled body suddenly projected itself 
into the fray! Where he came from Scotty could 
not imagine, but a volleying bay of savage barks told 
him that it was no cougar but another dog. 

Scotty stared for a moment, rifle lowered. Then 
—Blazer he yelled in amazed delight —'‘Yeeoowl 
—Tear him, puppy I” he whooped. The giant Aire¬ 
dale launched himself like a gray thunderbolt sur¬ 
charged with vim and power at the cougar’s throat. 
As Scotty watched them, not daring to fire, the cat 
spun around and Ruler instantly seized a hock hold. 
Claws flew through the air. Blaze bounded about 
the cat like a rubber ball, just out of reach. A 

37 


RED MESA 


whoop of triumph came from Niltci as he closed in 
swiftly with upraised knife. For a tense instant 
Scotty sat watching a chance to fire from his saddle, 
his heart beating so that he could hear the pulses 
through his own open mouth. Then the cat whirled 
and soared through the air in one tremendous bound 
that carried him twenty feet away. He hit the 
ground running. There is no such speed as an old 
Tom can put on when in a tight place! He seemed 
literally to fly through the air, Blaze and Ruler a 
jump or two behind him. Niltci gave up the chase 
and snatched at the bridle of his pony as that faith¬ 
ful creature raced up after him. Scotty put spurs 
to the mare and galloped off in hot pursuit. 

^‘Hi! Blaze! Hi! Ruler \-^Wahoo H he yelled, 
throwing the bridle over the mare^s neck. In an¬ 
swer a stentorian Whoopee! came ringing back 
through the forest. That was a man*s voice, and 
almost immediately following it there was a crash 
in the timber and a white horse thundered through 
the pines at right angles to Scotty’s course, the tree 
trunks seeming to pass the white flash of the horse 
like fence pickets. 

^'Left! — Left!—You pisen —— horned—toadH 
came Big John’s iron voice, jolting to the rhythm 

38 


THE LURE OF THE MINE 


of his gallop. Scotty whooped back greeting at him 
and then wheeled obediently. The cat and both 
dogs were in plain sight ahead of him but Big John 
had an uncanny foresight in the ways of big game, 
and he had no doubt foreseen some sort of twist or 
short cut on the cougar’s part. The timber cleared 
ahead of Scotty now, and out to the left in it he saw 
a giant pine, already dying of old age. For it the 
cougar had turned and was now racing at top speed. 
He ran up its huge bole like a cat climbing a tree, 
a shower of bark spalls raining down from his claws. 
At the first big dead branch he stopped and turned 
below his black muzzle, spitting and snarling from 
an open pink mouth at the dogs underneath. Ruler 
was prancing around on his hind legs, yelling with 
eagerness, while Blaze savagely scrambled up the 
trunk, to lose his grip and tumble down and in¬ 
domitably attempted it again. 

Big John reined in the white horse. ‘^Now’s yore 
chance to do the pretty, Scotty, old-timer—^afore he 
jumps down— shoot!** he yelled. 

Scotty quieted the mare and raised the .405. Its 
enormous bellow rang out. The cat screeched and 
launched forth with all four claws spread in the 
convulsive flurry of death. He struck the pine 

39 


RED MESA 


needles with a heavy thud and instantly the dogs 
charged in, growling and worrying at him, while old 
Tom rolled over on his back and spun his claws in 
the instinctive defense of a cat in his last throes. 
Niltci clattered up on the mustang at that instant. 
In a flash he had leaped from his horse, bounded to 
the cougar’s side and jumped away, leaving a red 
knife-handle sticking out behind the cougar’s shoul¬ 
der blades. Again there was a flash of his nimble 
body and the knife came out, while blood spurted 
six feet from the gash. The cougar groaned and 
stretched out on his side, quivering and sighing 
peacefully as if falling asleep. His eyes glazed; then 
the body stiffened and stretched in a last tremor. 

Blaze ran up on the carcass and bared white fangs 
at Ruler. His attitude was crinky, cocky as a prize 
fighter’s, and he honestly believed that he had killed 
that whole cougar all by himself! He dared Ruler 
to come on. As the latter had convictions of his 
own concerning that cat, a royal dog-fight seemed 
imminent—^but Niltci seized the hound’s collar and 
held him back by main force. 

Big John laughed uproariously. ‘‘Hoi’ him, 
Injun!” he roared. “Ruler’ll be gobblin’ more’n he 

40 


THE LURE OF THE MINE 


kin chow, fust ye know! That Blazie-boy’s feelin' 
reel mean an’ ornery, danged ef he ain’t!” 

Scotty laughed as Big John dismounted to boot 
the Airedale olf the cougar, for Niltci had signified 
that he wanted to begin skinning out but wasn’t any 
too anxious to go near the belligerent Blaze. 

“Where’s Sid, John?” asked Scotty, collecting his 
thoughts for the first coherent greeting that the swift 
action of the hunt so far had allowed. 

The big cowman’s eyes twinkled. “Sid, he ain’t 
travelin’ none, these days,” he grinned. “He’s back 
thar, somewhar, nursin’ along a sort of present for 
ye, Scotty.” He winked enigmatically at the youth. 

“How come?” asked Scotty, mystified. “Pres¬ 
ent, eh?” 

“Yaas, he’ll come a-singin’ with it, pronto. Some 
dago writin’ on a piece of Injun pottery, ’tis. We-all 
was headin’ for yore camp when we heard Ruler 
kyoodlin’ back thar a-piece,” he explained, “so 
Blazie and I, we ’lows to set in the game. But Sid 
he’s afear’d to ride, which same’s because he mought 
break that thar curio. We found it in one of them 
caves, after the most all-fired climb this hombre ever 
got inter. I’m settin’ here to tell ye-” 

“Here he comes, now!” interrupted Scotty, 


41 



RED MESA 


whipping off his sombrero to wave it at a new rider 
who came plodding through the pines with a led 
pack cayuse following him. ^'Whoopee! —Oh, Sid!’* 
he yelled. 

The rider waved back. The dogs put out for him 
pell-mell, Ruler leaping and fawning up on his sad¬ 
dle flanks, so overjoyed was he at seeing Sid again, 
the Airedale jealously shoving in to get his share 
of the caresses. Presently Sid rode up to where 
Big John and Niltci were busily skinning out the 
cougar and butchering big sections of the delicious 
meat. 

“Hi, Sid!—what’s all this Big John’s telling me 
about a present?” Scotty greeted him. “Gosh 
knows, I was feeling pretty blue not so very long 
ago! Did you remember it was my birthday or any¬ 
thing?” he bantered. 

“It’s a mine for you, Scotty!” announced Sid, 
breathlessly, his eyes alight with the joy of him who 
gives, “an old Spanish mine! Got the dope here 
on a pottery tablet that we found in a cave dwell- 
mg. 

“Gorry!— 2l mine!—le’s see it!” cried Scotty. “A 
real, sure-enough mine? I’d begun to think there 
was no such thing left in Arizona.” 

42 


THE LURE OF THE MINE 


“It’s at a place called Red Mesa, down near Pina- 
cate, Scotty,” said Sid. ^‘The dope’s all in Latin 
and I can’t read much of it, but we’ll hunt up a priest 
somewhere and get him to translate it-” 

Scotty’s face fell, even while Sid was speaking. 
“‘Down near Pinacate!’” he echoed, huge disap¬ 
pointment in his tones. “It can*t be, Sid! Why, 
that’s all lava country! There’s no mesa or mineral 
down there.” 

“How about the Ajo Mines?” challenged Sid. 
“And there’s lots of ore north of Sonoyta, only it 
costs too much to work it. You know that your¬ 
self.” 

“By gosh, you never can tell I” exclaimed Scotty, 
excitedly. “It’s possible, though! There’s granite 
outcropping, even down at Macdougal Pass, only 
fifteen miles from Pinacate. We’ll try it!” 

“Hope it isn’t in Mexican territory—^but no, 
'twenty-one miles northeast of Pinacate,’ the 
plaque says-” 

“Gee! Le’s see it!” cried Scotty eagerly. 

Big John grinned sardonic grins as the two youths 
got the plaque out of Sid’s saddlebags and held it 
between them, scanning it excitedly. He heard 

43 




RED MESA 


Scotty eagerly bark out the word *aurum* —gold?^' 
and shook his head. 

‘‘ ’Pears to me that every white man but me goes 
crazy over that word ‘gold’!” he growled whimsically. 
“Fellers will lie, steal, murder, get themselves killed 
with thirst or et by grizzlies—an’ all for somethin’ 
that they don’t want when they’ve got it!” he ex¬ 
claimed. “Scotty, ef it warn’t for you bein’ a minin’ 
engineer I’d warn ye to leave it aloneT he said posi¬ 
tively. “Exceptin’ it’s now November and the tanks 
is probably full down thar, I wouldn’t let you go, 
nohow.” 

But Scotty was hardly listening to him. A plan¬ 
ning look was in his eye and his engineer mind was 
already envisioning not the mine itself but the prac¬ 
tical ways to get out the metal. 

“Ship base in Adair Bay; burros up to the mine; 
carry the ore in bottoms through the Panama Canal 
to the East, where we can get cheap process reduc¬ 
tion—Gee! There’s nothing to it!” he averred en¬ 
thusiastically. 

“C’rect—nawthin’ a-tall, li’l hombre!” grinned 
Big John sardonically. “No water; no feed for 
yore burros; no road—an’ no mine!” he declared. 

“Yes, but ships, John!” urged Scotty. “That’s 

44 


THE LURE OF THE MINE 

different. We can send out a year’s supply of hay, 
oats and supplies for the camp just as they do at 
Las Pintas, and bring back the bottoms in ore. It’s 
mighty different from some inland proposition, hun¬ 
dreds of miles from either rail or sea routes. If 
this tablet is reliable, the engineering side of it is a 
cinch! Le’s hear the ethnologist.” 

Sid spoke up on this prompting: “We know well 
that all that country has been explored since the 
earliest times by the Spaniards,” he contributed. 
“Sonoyta has been inhabited by them for over two 
hundred years, and one of their oldest missions is 
San Xavier, the one for Papago Indians who used 
to hunt all that country. The friars were Domini¬ 
cans—D.O.M., you see. This Fra Pedro undoubt¬ 
edly got his information from some Papago visitors 
to the pueblo tribes. He made that pottery record 
and had it fired while proselyting among the pueblos 
of the San Pedro River—probably named the river 
himself after his patron saint. It all fits in, see, 
John? Then he got wounded or hurt, somehow, 
in the general massacre of the friars in 1680 and 
died in the refuge of that cavate dwelling. The 
Indians buried his plaque with him in a sort of kiva. 

45 


RED MESA 


The thing seems straight enough to me/’ concluded 
Sid. 

‘‘Me too!” grinned Big John. ‘T gotto nurse you 
two pisen mean young reptyles down into that no¬ 
man’s land—I see thatT he snorted. “Waal, le’s 
git back to yore camp, Scotty, an’ I’ll git the outfit 
ready. Niltci’s goin’, of course. We gotto hev at 
least one Injun down in that country. Thar’s lots 
of mountain sheep down thar, an’ that means boss 
feed, galleta grass. We’ll git a few prong horns 
’(antelope), mebbe, out’n them lava craters. Ef the 
tanks is not dry, we kin resk it.” 


CHAPTER III 


VASQUEZ 

E VING Big John and Niltci hard at work 
making pemmican from the cougar and 
deer meat, and bags of pinole or parched 
corn meal from corn purchased at a near-by Apache 
encampment, Sid and Scotty rode a day’s march 
through the mountains to where there was a mis¬ 
sion school—San Mateo of the Apaches. Scotty’s 
idea was to get the Red Mesa tablet translated by 
the teacher, who no doubt still remembered his 
Latin. 

A small adobe schoolhouse of primitive Spanish 
architecture came in sight shortly after noon, sur¬ 
mounting a little knoll in the mountains. As they 
rode toward it Indian children, boys and girls, came 
running and yelling around them to beg pennies, 
and with them as an escort they rode up to the 
hitching rail before the school, dismounted and en¬ 
tered. 


47 


RED MESA 


A lone Mexican teacher, poor and of uncertain 
temper apparently, sat reading at the school desk as 
they entered. With an annoyed exclamation in 
Spanish he put down his book and came toward 
them during the time that their eyes were becoming 
accustomed to the dim light of the interior of the 
building. 

‘^And what can I do for the sehores ?” inquired the 
man suspiciously, after the usual polite Spanish 
greetings had been exchanged. 

Sid had already sized him up with a sense of mis¬ 
giving, even then, before a word of their object had 
been disclosed. The Mexican—his nationality 
oozed out all over him—was a little weazened man, 
dirty, old, with one eye drooping nearly shut from 
some violent slash gotten during his past history. 
His face bore a sardonic, cynical, rascally expres¬ 
sion, even under the smooth suavity of the crooked 
smile that now leered upon them. Sid felt like tak¬ 
ing Scotty’s arm and leading him away, right then 
and there! Surely this man was no one to trust 
with such a mining secret as might be written on 
the Red Mesa tablet. 

But Scotty had already guilelessly begun explain¬ 
ing their visit. His simple, ‘'We have a Latin in- 

48 


VASQUEZ 


scription here, sehor, that we would like you to trans¬ 
late for us,” had settled it, for the man was already 
holding out his hand for the plaque which Scotty 
bore. 

‘‘You understand Latin, sehor?” put in Sid, hop¬ 
ing that he didn’t. 

“Vasquez,” supplied the Mexican, ^*ees my name. 
For the Latin, si! —indifferently,” he shrugged. 
‘‘Anything that my poor efforts can do to help you, 
though—” Once more he held out his hand for 
the plaque. 

Again Sid felt that queer inner warning not to 
let the matter go further. He disliked any man 
who depreciated his own worth with every other 
word. Due modesty was admirable, but this grovel¬ 
ing disdain of one’s self was in truth but the inev¬ 
itable expression of a fundamental lack of esteem 
for one’s own integrity—and that usually came from 
a guilty conscience. 

But it was too late now. Before Sid could obey 
a mad impulse to snatch the tablet away—no matter 
what explanations might be needed—no matter how 
absurd and incomprehensible and rude it might seem 
—the Mexican had begun reading the script on the 
pottery. 


49 


RED MESA 


“D.O.M.—Deo Optimo Maximo/' he rolled out 
m the sonorous Latin tongue. That was as far as 
he got in reading it out aloud to the boys. For, 
immediately thereafter, an expression of amazed, 
puzzled surprise came into his eyes as the boys 
watched him reading over the script to himself. 
Then Sid noted intense concentration, and this grad¬ 
ually gave way to an expression of crafty cupidity, 
an air of envisioning something other than the words 
that his eyes were falling on, of planning big enter¬ 
prise, great affairs in connection with this tablet. 
Vasquez went on to read the script entirely through 
in a still, tense silence. Before he had finished, those 
snaky black eyes of his were fairly blazing with 
avarice. Talk of the power of the word ‘‘gold" to 
excite man! This man’s primitive nature stood 
stripped before the boys; revealed was an elemental 
desire for possession before which the rights of 
others, the entire veneer of civilization were stricken 
off as phantoms. He might as well have been some 
Mexican greaser griping at a pile of gold on some 
disreputable faro table along the border! 

As Sid watched, the face before him looked up. 
Instantly it went blank, expressionless. There was 
a period of reflection, while the boys waited cxpcc- 

50 


VASQUEZ 

tantly, then a crafty, planning look came into the 
eyes. 

He folded the plaque under his arm—gesture of 
possession, which we are told, is nine points of the 
law. 

Vasquez smiled— a. practical declaration of owner¬ 
ship—a maddening, infuriating smile; the superior 
smile of the older man toward youth, which seems 
to question the right of the young man to busy him¬ 
self with anything at all but the toys of childhood. 
Sid found it particularly unbearable. He had been 
smiled at that way before, when some staid and 
sophisticated professor had smiled indulgently at him 
over some of his own theories in Indian ethnology, 
theories which Sid propounded with all the fire of 
his youthful enthusiasm and conviction. 

‘^Caballeros,said the Mexican craftily, “this 
matter can have no possible interest to you, since^ 
it happens to refer to the work of the missionary 
brothers among the—ah, the Papagoes—” he hesi¬ 
tated, referring to the script as if to refresh his 
memory, his thought evidently being that the boys 
might have recognized that word in the Latin. 
“Over two hundred years ago this—^ah, yes, mission¬ 
ary matter it is, my young friends—was written con- 

51 


RED MESA 


cerning our poor red brothers who lived down near 
Pinacate,” Vasquez smiled down at them suavely. 

Sid glanced at Scotty. The latter’s Scotch nature 
was so incensed over this bald smiling perversion of 
what even his limited knowledge of Latin had told 
him was the truth that he was utterly speechless. 
'‘Minem ArgenW indeed! That meant “silver mine” 
at any rate! Scotty’s faced blazed red, his eyes 
burned blue fire. As for Sid, he saw no use in pro¬ 
longing this conversation further, for in craft the 
Mexican was more than his match. Boylike he pre¬ 
ferred direct action. 

“Sorry that I can’t see it that way, sehor,” he 
replied shortly, gulping down his indignation. “I 
should be glad to furnish you with a copy of this 
tablet for your archives, if you wish,” he conceded, 
“but that original plaque is mine.” 

He held out his hand for it with a gesture that 
told he was not to be trifled with further. Vasquez 
looked around desperately. Give him a moment more 
and he would think up some smooth reply that would 
at least gain time, perhaps argue the thing out of 
their very hands! But Sid made a determined lunge 
for him as the Mexican backed away. 

At once the man raised his voice in a hoarse 

52 


VASQUEZ 


scream, *^Ladrones! Gringoes!** he yelled, fending 
off Sid with a push of his hand while he turned the 
slide with the plaque under his arm away from them. 
Then he ran for a door at the back of the school. 
Shrill yells and the shouts of Apache came in answer 
to his call from outside. There was not a second 
further to lose! Scotty sprang for the man, lunging 
low in the football tackle for his legs, while Sid 
with a fierce and accurate grip of his strong hands 
tore the plaque away from under his arm, the scuffle 
sending the three rolling together in •a heap on 
the dirt floor of the church. 

“Quick! Make for that rear door!’’ barked Sid 
as he and Scotty leaped to their feet. Vasquez 
squirmed on the dirt floor of the schoolhouse, curs¬ 
ing horribly in Spanish and rocking to and fro as 
he hugged a sprained ankle. If looks could kill, the 
malignant fire that darted from his snaky eyes 
would have paralyzed them both! Sid raced for the 
rear door while Scotty stood guard over the man 
with threatening fists. The patter of running feet 
sounded outside the ’dobe walls. Then a leggined 
Apache, with long, matted black hair, stood blinking 
in at them in the blazing square of sunlight that jyas 
the front door. 


53 



RED MESA 


Sid had reached the back door. He looked in, then 
beckoned Scotty to join him. The boy raced over 
and, once inside the room, both boys slammed the 
stout panels behind them and let drop a heavy oak 
beam. 

“There’s a small window, with a mesquite bush 
growing out in front of it, Scotty—give me a stirrup 
hold!” gasped Sid, who was breathing heavily from 
their tussle. 

He stepped up in Scotty’s clasped hands and 
peered out the window, with one arm crooked over 
the edge. A mesquite grew just outside, and it was 
so heavily laden with dense clumps of mistletoe as 
to be in a dying state. Sid figured they might climb 
out into it and remain there undiscovered among 
the mistletoe clumps for a few moments. Outside 
he saw three or four Apache bucks running toward 
the schoolhouse from the grass huts perched upon 
the hillside. All over the village he heard an in¬ 
describable commotion of children and squealing 
squaws, but the Indians had no idea of what really 
was the matter. So far only Vasquez’s screech for 
help had come to their ears. 

Sid climbed out through the window and then 
reached down his arms to help Scotty up to its sill. 

54 


VASQUEZ 


An uproar and a drumming of fists and impotent 
squalls in Spanish was sounding outside the oak 
door of the room as they both climbed out and 
gained the shelter of the mesquite. As the last buck 
outside ran into the school, Sid dropped to the 
ground and the boys raced for their horses. An 
outcry of Indian children greeted the appearance of 
the two fugitives, but none offered to interfere.; only 
one little shaver had the presence of mind to run 
shrieking to the school door while Sid and Scotty 
were swinging up into their saddles. 

‘‘Now ride, Scotty, old scout—these Apache can 
fww/" grunted Sid, hanging low over his pinto and 
putting spurs to him. Scotty’s mare had no idea of 
letting that pinto leave her, so they galloped away 
from San Mateo together, leaving behind a cloud of 
dust and a riot of angry war whoops from the red 
men piling out of the schoolhouse. 

Sid’s caution as to the running abilities of the 
Apache was entirely true. Behind them streaked 
out two lean and sinewy bucks, who had raced out 
of the school door and were coming after them like 
arrows. What was more surprising was the way 
they kept up that speed. The mare and the pinto 
were going like the wind, but not a yard did those 

55 


BED MESA 

Indians on foot behind them seem to lose! There 
was not a horse save their own in sight. But three 
men and a swarm of children were already running 
down the hill to where the ragged poles of a horse 
corral and the glint of a watering pond near by 
shimmered in the broiling sun. Even barebacked 
it would be some time yet before these could join in 
the chase, but when it was once begun it would be 
tireless. 

Not a word passed between the boys. Both were 
watching sharp ahead for prairie dog holes and 
urging on their ponies at top gallop. If they could 
outrun those two bucks behind them for half a 
mile they would have passed the limits of even 
Apache endurance. Indeed, before half the dis¬ 
tance between them and the friendly hills had 
passed, they saw first one, then the other, give up, 
with arms tossed up in weary abandon, as both 
bucks threw themselves panting on the bare plain. 
Sid and Scotty then let their ponies ride on at their 
own stride. It was well to have an extra spurt left 
in them to call on, even yet! 

“Mucho bad, Sid; look back!” said Scotty, a short 
time after the menace of the foot-racers had disap¬ 
peared and the two bucks had risen and begun slowly 

56 


VASQUEZ 


to retrace their steps back to the school. Sid turned 
half around in his saddle. Out from the high ’dobe 
fagade of San Mateo were riding four horsemen 
and their leader was swathed in a gaudy striped 
Mexican serape. Surely he was that rascally Vas- 
quez. And he would follow them until doomsday 
for the Red Mesa tablet! 

“The whole thing’s bad, Scotty,” replied Sid. 
“This fellow knows now what’s written on the 
tablet. Nothing can take that knowledge away from 
him, either. We’ve got the plaque; but he has the 
knowledge it contains—^and I’ll bet it’s indelible in 
his mind! They’ll never catch us with those Indian 
ponies, but what’s to prevent his reporting this Red 
Mesa mine to friends of his down in Mexico? What 
then?—you can have my shirt if a squad of their 
guerrillas doesn’t cross the border, pronto, and get 
to Red Mesa first! See it? That’s where we get 
off. I doubt if this fellow will follow us very hard. 
He knows all he needs to know right now.” 

Scotty rode on in silence. Indeed this business 
had been bungled! Far better would it have been 
for them to have ridden into Tucson and gotten some 
scientist whom Sid knew and could trust to read the 
Latin for them. The very word “Gold” is bad 

57 


RED MESA 


medicine to let get abroad among the sons of men! 
Many a miner’s stampede has been started on less. 

As the trail reached the foothills they drew rein 
and looked back. Far across the plain that little 
knot of horsemen was still coming on in the tireless 
lope of the Indian pony. Give them twenty miles of 
it and their own horses would be run off their feet! 

^‘Here’s where we’ve got to step light and easy, 
old-timer!” grinned Sid. ‘‘The Indians will be in 
their own country in these hills, and they know every 
short cut to head us off. I wish Big John and 
Niltci were here.” 

Scotty growled assent abstractedly as they rode 
up a bare and rocky arroyo. He was thinking of all 
that this Red Mesa mine meant to him. If it really 
existed, its nearness to the sea made the engineering 
problems of it so simple that it would be easy to get 
capital invested in it. Las Pintas mines, only thirty 
miles south of Pinacate, had already established a 
successful precedent for that, for it now had a little 
railroad of its own and a ship base, just as the young 
engineer had dreamed for Red Mesa. But now that 
Red Mesa’s location was known to outsiders—and 
after being buried two hundred years, too!—the 
whole thing was a mess, and of his own naive mak- 

58 


VASQUEZ 


ing. The curse of trustful youth! There was just 
one point of hope. According to government regu¬ 
lations, whoever got there first and staked out a 
claim owned Red Mesa, now matter how discovered* 

Scotty raged inwardly over it, driving his mare 
hard under that maddening goad of chagrin. Sid, 
who was less interested, followed phlegmatically be¬ 
hind. As the trail reached up high on the flanks of 
the mountains and headed up over a “saddle’* into 
the next valley, Scotty rode ahead, dismounted and 
began climbing rapidly up toward the saw-teeth 
ridges that hung low in the sky above him. A 
persistent suspicion had haunted him ever since this 
ride had begun, and now he wanted that suspicion 
verified or dispelled. 

As Sid passed below him then halted his pinto 
and waited, Scotty climbed on up and soon was 
peering through a ragged granite gap in the ridge. 
Below him fell away the bare, sage-strewn slopes 
and the low ridges of the foothills. Beyond that the 
great sunbaked plain of San Mateo lay like a floor. 
Up on its lonely hill, dim, in the blue distance, rose 
the school, yellow, and as Spanish as old Mexico. 
A mass of green around it told of water and of its 
permanent Apache colony. 

59 


RED MESA 


Scotty then searched the plain for signs of their 
pursuers. At first he thought they had followed 
them into the mountains, for the plain below was 
bare as a table. Then he drew back, with a shock 
of intense discouragement and misgiving, for his 
eyes had at last found them—riding along under the 
foothills, toward the south! There were two of the 
Indians following Vasquez who was quirting his 
pony mercilessly. The third Apache had disap¬ 
peared. 

‘‘Gee!’' groaned the boy anxiously. “He’s riding 
south! Toward the railroad! That means a tele¬ 
gram as soon as he can send one. And the third 
Indian is following us!'* 

He scrambled down and told Sid his news. 

“Kick me for a rank tenderfoot, Sid!” he groaned. 
“Kick me from here back to camp, and then kick 
me clear on down to Pinacate! Gorry, but I let the 
cat out that time!” 

Sid grinned. “Buck up, old settler!” he cheered 
him. “I knew we were in wrong as soon as I saw 
that greaser schoolmaster. To give the Red Mesa 
plaque to some benign old priest to read, yes; but 
this bird was just a sinful man like the rest of us. 
The temptation proved too strong for him. Gee, 

6o 


VASQUEZ 


but you handed him our dope, as innocent as inno¬ 
cent! Wheel Big John’ll think up something to 
do about it, though, and if he don’t we will. Re¬ 
member, too, that Mexico is the land of manana. 
I doubt if they even get any one started up from 
Sonora before we can make a fast push and get 
there first, old scout, so don’t worry. Besides, they 
can’t cross the border, unless a party of guerrillas 
does it. And—they’d have a lot of explaining to do 
to get the grant of a claim from the government 
unless regularly entered as immigrants through 
Nogales—which is further from Red Mesa than we 
are. Our job, now, is to keep an eye on this third 
Indian. He was sent after us as a spy, to keep track 
of us and report, you can depend on that. We’ll 
send Niltci after him/' 

Scotty rode on, more hopeful. Sid’s rugged 
cheerfulness was what he always needed to brace 
him up. The one strong note in his character was 
his indomitable Scotch persistence. He never let 
go a thing once his mind was set on it, but he was 
easily disheartened and set back, for he had yet 
to learn that nine-tenths of our troubles exist solely 
in our imaginations. 

It was nightfall when they reached camp. Not 

6i 


RED MESA 


a sign had they seen of the third Indian, lurking 
in the hills somewhere behind them. That he had 
seen them was quite to be believed; he was probably 
watching their entry into camp at that very 
moment! 

Big John hee-hawed when the boys told their 
. story; then he jumped up, cackling hideously, 
grabbed Scotty and booted him all around the 
camp. ‘Thar!—Ye pisen li’l, ornery, horned toad! 
—Gol-darn ye—^anyhow !’^ he guffawed, administer¬ 
ing that kicking that Scotty had begged for but Sid 
had overlooked. “You boys ain't satisfied with 
draggin' me down to a country glowerin' with petri¬ 
fied lava, but ye got to add to my troubles by ringin' 
in a bunch of greasers on me! I tell ye what, Scotty, 
Pinacate means, ‘Bug-that-stands-on-his-haid,' in 
Papago talk, an' durned ef I don't stand ye on yore 
haid, ef we don't find no mine—an' we won't 1 Up 
you goes by the heels. I'll be plumb hornswoggled 
ef I don't do it!" 

“Yeeow—attaboy!" yelled Sid, enthusiastically. 
“Well, how come? We've got to shake off this 
Apache, first, or he'll follow us clear down to Pina¬ 
cate. What's the word, John?" 

“My idee's to do a leetle night ridin', son—^and 

62 


VASQUEZ 


sorter leave Niltci behind/^ grinned Big John enig¬ 
matically. “Might's well be rollin' yore blankets 
right now, boys. The jerky's all done and Niltci's 
got it pickled away in a bunch of parfleche skins.” 

That night the four horses, with Ruler and Blaze 
on rawhide leaders, pulled out of camp in the silence 
and gloom after dusk. One horse, Niltci's flea-bitten 
mustang, was led riderless, his halter tied to the tail 
of Sid's pinto. The white mustang that bore Big 
John's long frame started ahead up the trail, a 
guide barely distinguishable in the faint light of the 
big Arizona stars. Black and inky buttes, jagged 
peaks and swelling ridges passed them in a slow 
procession around the horizon while Big John led 
on, stopping occasionally on the trail to reassure 
himself by some blazed stake set up in a cairn of 
stones or a rude corner of weathered granite rocks 
marking a turning point in the route. 

The sun rose over the range of mountains left 
behind them next morning as the pack train wound 
down through the last pass in the hills and crossed 
the railroad track above Tucson. The horses were 
watered at a little river near the trades, a river that 
was bravely hurrying on to its fate, to disappear 
forever in the thirsty sands of the desert to the 

63 


RED MESA 


north. Bare and rocky hills confronted them across 
the valley. As they headed into them Sid turned 
and looked back. A lone rider came galloping after 
them like a black speck hurrying out of the ranges 
across the valley. The whole party halted waiting 
for the rider, whether friend or foe. 

It was Niltci, the Navaho, flinging along Indian 
fashion on a pony, his elbows flopping jerkily, 
his whole body swaying with the loose abandon of 
a rag tied somehow to the saddle. 

“Well?” said Sid, as the Navaho boy overtook 
them, “what’s become of Vasquez’s Apache scout?” 

Niltci’s bronze face cracked once in a saturnine 
grin. “QwiVn sdbef* (Who knows!) he shrugged 
his dusty shoulders. “Me got hees pony!” That 
was all they ever had out of him about it. 

“Them thar rails says we gotta lope along pronto, 
boys!” said Big John as he pushed the white mus¬ 
tang to the head of the column. “Yore schoolmarm 
friend has gone by hyar, in the cyars, shore’s yore 
a foot high. ’Cause why? I didn’t see no pony 
tracks headin’ down fer Tucson, nohow, cornin’ down 
this valley.” 

“Think he’s gone to Nogales, by train, John?” 
asked Scotty anxiously. 

64 


VASQUEZ 


“Shore has! Or else he’s takin’ the jerkwater 
local out of Tucson to San Xavier, so he can reach 
the Papago Reservation ahead of us. We’ll be 
crossin’ thet Injun ole folks’ home soon as we git 
out’n these hills an’ we’ll shore hev trouble!” 

Big John shook his head ominously and urged on 
the white mustang. For him the race for Red Mesa 
had already begun. 

“Yes, but the Papagoes are harmless,” objected 
Scotty. 

“Not this time of year!” put in Sid. “This is 
corn time with them, and every other buck is drunk 
on a ferment that they make of it. That Vasquez 
could arouse them to almost anything, now.—Hey, 
John?” 

“Shore, them Injuns is bad medicine for all white 
men in November!” quoth Big John sententiously. 

They rode on in silence. A row ahead was tol¬ 
erably certain, Sid thought. If Vasquez had reached 
them first by the railroad they would probably get a 
hot reception! 

Two hours later their cavalcade filed out of the 
mountains and headed across a wide and hot plain. 
It was like riding into an entirely new world. 
Odd twisted and contorted cactus vegetation no\y 

65 


RED MESA 


covered the desert. Every plant and tree was dif¬ 
ferent from anything the boys had ever seen before. 
Even the mountains were different, for instead of 
having the usual foothills they rose, gray and jagged 
and bare in the blue sky, abruptly from a flat and 
sandy floor. A faint tinge of green on their sides 
showed that the queer vegetation of this arboreal 
desert climbed up for a considerable distance even 
on that dry and inhospitable soil. 

In front of them stretched a wide and flat plain, 
clear to the bases of the distant gray mountains. 
Sparse galleta grass and patches of gray sand dotted 
with creosote bushes covered it. There were clumps 
of mesquite, looking like dwarfed and twisted locust 
trees; here and there a bright green patch which, on 
riding closer, developed on to a palo verde, its bright 
green branches and twigs a dense lacery of glistening 
green. Sid rose close to one, looking for its leaves 
for apparently it had none. They were infinites¬ 
imal, spiky little things, adding nothing to its beauty, 
which he saw came entirely from the palo verde*s 
masses of sap-green branches. 

As they rode further to the southwest, multitudes 
of what looked like tall green fence posts appeared. 
They covered the ridges, each as straight as a lance 

66 


VASQUEZ 


and as thick as a tree. They were small saguarro 
or giant cactus, ribbed and pleated in green, and 
covered with thorns. Further west they grew larger 
and put forth branches like huge candelabra. 

To Sid’s naturalist soul all this arboreal desert was 
weird and beautiful and interesting. The tree choya, 
a clubby specimen with stiff branches of thorn 
bristles at the ends of crooked branches, began to 
appear; then the ocatilla, the ‘‘Devil’s Chair,” as 
Big John called it, a tree with no trunk but with 
more arms than an octopus and each branch covered 
with thorns and small green leaves bunched along 
a green stem as hard as iron. 

Towards evening, across the gray-green miles, a 
small brown visita or mission outpost came to view. 
It was merely a large hut of adobe, but the bell 
in its upper tower told its purpose instantly. The 
boys thrilled as they looked at it, for they were now 
nearing the Papago Reservation and it was quite 
possible that Vasquez had forestalled them by train 
from Tucson. 

Big John reined in the white mustang. “Nobody 
to home, thar, these days,” quoth^e. “The Injuns 
is all away at the cornfields. We gotto ride in thar 

67 


RED MESA 


though, an’ help ourselves to water afore these 
bosses kin go further.” 

Sid would have preferred to keep away, but there 
was no choice. Water was king in this country! 
They had to get it, if it meant encountering a thou¬ 
sand malignant school-teachers. Vasquez’s subtle 
Spanish mind had no doubt led him to reason that 
they must come here. But what redskin reinforce¬ 
ments he might have picked up in that lonely mis¬ 
sion station imagination could not conjecture. 

Slowly the miles lessened; the building loomed 
up brown and enigmatical in the setting sun before 
them. ’Dobe houses, each with a mesquite pole 
veranda in front, appeared like magic among the 
green stakes of saguarros on the hillsides; then a 
round stone oven out in the valley near the school- 
house became plain to sight. 

They were perhaps yet a mile away when around 
the corner of the building appeared a man on horse¬ 
back. A cape or serape of some sort hung over his 
shoulders, but it was too far away to get any sense 
of color from it. Niltci squinted his keen eyes and 
gazed at him long and fixedly while the others 
reined up. 

“Mexicano!” he ejaculated. 

68 


VASQUEZ 


“Sho’ is!” agreed Big John. “I’ll bet my boss 
it’s that bird who tried to steal your tablet, boys!” 

Sid and Scotty fumbled for their hunting binocu¬ 
lars. A moment later they had trained them on the 
man. 

“It’s him, John, all right!” cried Sid. **Now 
what do we do?” 

The rider in the serape answered that question 
himself, for, wheeling his horse, he galloped off at 
full speed. 

“Ride, fellers! Burn it up!” roared Big John. 
“We got about no time to git in thar an’ water our 
bosses. He’ll be back, right sudden, with the hull 
b’ilin’ of drunken Injuns!” 


CHAPTER IV 


PINACATE 

I N a lather of foam the four horses raced in to 
the deserted Papago village. ’Dobe houses 
with small blunt chimneys dotted the hillside, 
but there was not so much as a dog in sight. The 
well was easy to find—a cube of palings built around 
a curbstone to keep wandering burros from falling 
in. It topped a low knoll and had a primitive wind¬ 
lass lowering a bucket into its depths. 

Ten minutes of sweating activity followed, Sid 
and Scotty scanning the hills anxiously while each 
horse drank his fill; the two dogs lapped up a hatful 
from Big John’s sombrero; then all the canteens 
were filled. 

‘‘Now roll yore tails, boys!” urged Big John, 
flinging himself up on the white mustang. Sid 
looked to his stirrups and mounted the pinto in a 
running jump. Blaze and Ruler barked excitedly 
as the horses clattered up a steep slope that led 

70 


PINACATE 


through a gap in the hills. What might be on the 
other side of that ridge! 

From its summit they saw a wide arboreal desert 
stretching away below, bounded on the west by a 
red, saw-tooth range of silent mountains. The rays 
of the setting sun swept across the plain, lighting 
up each saguarro pole in a spike of vivid green. 
But over in the hills to the east was coming a long 
file of riders—the Papagoes! They wound down 
a defile, galloping at full speed, and a tiny horseman 
swathed in a flying, striped serape led them. 

'‘Now, fellers, we shore got a race ahead of us T’ 
declared Big John. “We’ll make for Red Tank, out 
thar in the middle of this valley. See them two 
little ’dobe houses? That’s her. Head for them 
ef any of ye git separated.” 

Across the waste of creosote bushes, choyas and 
giant cactus that was the Baboquivari Desert gal¬ 
loped the whole party, heading due west toward the 
red water pond which lies about the center of it. 
Near its borders Sid could see the two ’dobe Papago 
houses, still ten miles off, yet they showed as tiny 
landmarks, even more noticeable than the many- 
branched giant saguarros which dotted the plain. 
Beyond them rose the Quijotoa mountains, abrupt 

71 


RED MESA 


and sheer, bare as the ribbed sides of a cliff. They 
were twenty miles away, but seemed quite neigh¬ 
borly, a refuge to ride for, a place for a stand-off 
fight if need be. 

'‘Gee!—regular movie stuff!” chortled Sid to 
Scotty as he looked back over his shoulder again. 
Vasquez and his muster of motley Papagoes were 
crossing from the east but had not gained a yard 
on them yet. But they surely would, by the time 
those ’dobe houses were reached! The horses could 
keep their distance easily—^at first. In time these 
tireless Indian mustangs would ride them down, sure 
as death! 

“We’ll stop and stand ’em off from those ’dobe 
houses, eh?” answered Scotty. “My old .405 will 
be the boy then, you bet!” 

“Won’t be no movie scrap, nohow!” growled Big 
John back from where he and Niltci were breaking 
trail. “The real thing don’t pan out that way. Ride, 
fellers! All tarnation won’t stop these horses from 
drinkin’ up the pond when we git thar, an’ we gotto 
make time so’s to let ’em do it. You, Blaze,” he 
stormed at the big Airedale loping along beside him, 

“I gotto turn ye loose, now, spite of thorns ketchin* 

72 


PINACATE 


yore coat. Cayn’t take no more chances with this 
leader.” 

Big John hauled up the huge furry Airedale on 
his saddle as he rode, unsnapped the leash and let 
him drop again. Twice before during the race the 
white mustang and Blaze had run on different sides 
of the same bush—with almost disastrous results 
but he had been still more afraid of thorns catching 
and holding the woolly-coated Airedale. Ruler had 
no such danger. The big hound loped along easily 
beside Sid’s pinto and his sleek sides passed the 
thorns like silk. 

In half an hour more of twisting and turning 
through the arboreal desert seven miles of the dis¬ 
tance had been covered. They still maintained per¬ 
haps two miles of lead over the Papagoes, in spite 
of the furious urgings and gesticulations of their 
leader in the striped serape. 

Big John glanced a sardonic eye back at him 
occasionally. ''Greaser—I’d plumb dote on stoppin’ 
a leetle lead with ye!” the boys heard him mutter 
through his clenched teeth, as he galloped along. 
"But them good old days is gone forever, now. We 
gotto put up a tin-horn game on ye instead.” 

Just what the hoax was going to be neither Sid 

73 


RED MESA 


nor Scotty could conjecture, but they knew Big' 
John’s resourcefulness of old. They rode on silently, 
wondering, nursing the horses around the surpris¬ 
ing twists and turns that Niltci ahead saw fit to 
make, usually to avoid great beds of bristly choyas. 
Both the mare and the pinto were breathing heavily 
now, and snorting in labored wheezes through their 
foaming nostrils. The pace was beginning to tell! 
The ’dobe houses loomed up not two miles off, but 
behind them came that tireless knot of Papago riders, 
light and lithe, and they could keep this up all day! 

Then came a yelp of pain from Blaze. The Aire¬ 
dale, in leaping to avoid a spiky choya, had slammed 
full into a bushy acacia whose incurved cat claw 
spines showed no intention of letting go again. 
Doglike, he stopped still, waiting for his master to 
extricate him and not trying to tear himself loose. 
Big John let out a round oath and flung himself 
from the white horse while the rest all stopped. 

“Get out yore .405 and let her talk, Scotty,” he 
barked, “she can outrange anything they’ve got, an’ 
this yer dawg’s goin’ to make us take time out.” 

Faint yells from their pursuers and the waving of 
rifles by upflung arms greeted the stoppage of their 
party. The cowman cut rapidly at the tufts of kinky 

74 


PINACATE 


hair that held Blaze fast, while Scotty yanked out 
his big rifle and ran back a short way to hide be¬ 
hind the cover of a giant saguarro. The distance 
between the parties closed up rapidly; to one mile, 
to half a mile, while Blaze whined and groaned, 
with mute fang laid protestingly on Big John’s bony 
hands as one by one the cat-claws were cut loose 
from his coat. 

Then the .405 whanged out and its bullets screamed 
high in the air. A puff of dust flew up in front of 
the Mexican rider’s mustang and he checked his 
horse viciously. The Indians around him, looking 
more like a collection of disreputable tramps than 
the real thing, reined up and presently puffs of white 
smoke came from them, followed by the faint pop 
of their weapons. 

At one of the shots Niltci suddenly threw up his 
arms and tumbled off his horse. Sid gasped with 
dismay, but to his astonishment the Indian boy was 
now wriggling off through the sage like a snake! 
He left his gaudy Navaho blanket behind, though, 
and Sid caught Big John’s eye winking at him. 
Evidently this was part of a ruse I 

“You, Sid—^make believe you was bending over 
something,” grunted Big John. “Thar, Blaze, yore 

75 


RED MESA 


free, old-timer! Now bring me that flea-bitten 
cayuse of Niltci’s, Siddy boy/’ 

Grinning, the youth held Niltci’s horse for him 
while Big John flung the blanket over Blaze, lifted 
him up on the saddle, and sprawled him out with his 
collar tied fast to the pommel horn. *‘Come on in, 
son I” roared Big John to Scotty as he threw a turn 
of rope around the dog’s back and vaulted up on the 
white mustang himself. ‘‘Now ride for all yore 
wuth, boys!” 

“But Niltci—how come?” gasped Sid. “Are we 
going to leave him?” 

“Never mind Niltci—he’s some busy, ’bout now. 
Hep, boys!” retorted Big John, putting spurs to the 
mustang. Indeed, as Sid looked around for him, 
Niltci had disappeared as if the earth had swallowed 
him up. He himself rode on lightheartedly. Shots 
rang out behind them and the puff of sandspurts 
kicked up the desert floor near by, but the Papagoes’ 
shooting was wild and the range a good deal too great 
as yet. The four horses swung down toward the 
first ’dobe house and Big John quickly led Niltci’s 
cayuse behind it and stopped them all. 

“Them Injuns may hev taken Blaze under the 
blanket fer Niltci wounded—^an’ again they mayn’t! 

76 


PINACATE 


WeVe got ’em guessin’ anyhow,” he grinned, peer¬ 
ing out around the corner. Sid, you take the bosses 
to the pawnd, an’ water ’em, while Scotty and I 
sorter dally with these excited hombres a leetle.” 
He dragged out his old meat gun, a .35 with a mouth 
like a young cannon and a knockout punch. ‘^C’mon, 
Scotty, le’s mosey!” 

Around the corner of the house they looked out 
and back across the plain. The Mexican rider had 
reined in at long rifle range. His Indians were 
dismounting and creeping out through the bushes to 
right and left while one of them held all their horses 
by a handful of halter ropes. Finally the Mexican 
also dismounted and joined them in the ambush 
attack. Their idea was evidently to creep up close 
and then carry the house by a simultaneous rush. 

“Fooled ’em, all right!” grinned Big John. 
“They shore think that Niltci got hurt in the 
shootin’ an’ we brought him in hyar lashed to his 
saddle. Let ’em come! You an’ I mought’s well 
be a-sprinklin’ the sage, Scotty, so as to make it 
more excitin’. Don’t shoot nobody—tain’t wuth it.” 

He went to the other corner of the house and 
opened fire with the .35. Nothing loath, Scotty tore 
loose with the monstrous shout of his big .405‘ 

77 


RED MESA 


made a fine noise, and its bullets ripped and rico- 
chetted across the sand, throwing up small shell- 
spouts like a naval gun. Answering shots and the 
whizz and smash of lead bullets striking the building 
told the youth that this was not all play. Whatever 
story Vasquez, if it was he, had told the Papagoes 
it had evidently aroused them to an unwonted fury. 
It all seemed incredible, preposterous to Scotty. The 
Bean-Eaters were the most peaceful of red men. 
Were it not corn time he could not have believed 
that they were really fighting in earnest. 

“Got them bosses watered, Sid?” called out Big 
John presently. “Bring ^em hyar; show’s cornin’ 
off, pronto.” 

Sid led the horses back under the shelter of the 
house and ran to help in the defense. Shots rang out 
in the sage, coming from both sides on their flanks. 
It was getting high time to move on, before one 
of the horses should be hit. Sid aimed carefully 
behind a puff of white smoke that rose from a creo¬ 
sote bush at his right, and let go with his .30 army 
carbine. Before he could watch the result a yell 
and a shout of laughter from Scotty spun him 
around. Out there on the plain a funny thing was 
happening. The Indian in charge of the Bapagoes’ 

78 


PINACATE 


horses had now apparently mounted one of them 
and was riding off with the entire bunch! 

It was several seconds before Sid realized the 
truth—that that white rider with the red bandanna 
about his foreheard could be none other than Niltci 
himself! While Sid had been shooting, the Navaho 
boy had crept up through the sage, knocked down 
the Papago holding the horses and ridden off with 
all of them! 

At sight of this disaster a chorus of vengeful 
whoops rose out of the desert all around them and 
two or three Papagoes leaped from cover in a futile 
spurt to catch the runaways. Sid could have bowled 
them over easily but he was instantly recalled by 
Big John’s shout. 

“Mount and ride, boys!” the big cowman was 
yelling. He himself leaped up on the white mus¬ 
tang and the boys followed hard after, riding along 
the banks of the red pond. A flock of teal rose in 
a great flutter of wings and there were yells and 
imprecations behind them from out in the creosote 
bijshes, but they waited not to hear them. Big John 
was guffawing so that he could hardly keep his 
saddle. ‘‘Sing, redskins!—Yell, ye pisen horned 
toads! Ain’t it a grand an’ glorious feelin’ to be 

79 


EED MESA 


set afoot though!” he shouted back at them. ‘‘Gosh 
dum it, boys, I ain’t hed so much fun since we 
made Apache Sam eat a rattlesnake! Niltci an’ I, 
we cooked up thet hoss-thievin’ stunt whilst ridin’ 
out hyar. Blaze, he jest nat’rally helped!” 

As for Niltci, he was now making a wide circle 
around the other side of the pond, leaving behind 
him the screaming and fist-shaking Vasquez, who 
stood in the sage searching his soul for Spanish 
expletives that would relieve his feelings! Niltci 
rode in to join them shortly after, with all the 
Papago ponies following him and a broad grin on 
his face. 

'^Mucho huenoT he grunted. “What do with 
pony?” 

“Oh, we’ll pilgrim along a while, an’ then drop 
’em after dark somewhar near the Quijotoas,” 
laughed Big John. “Fine work, Injun! I reckon 
we’re shut of that outfit for a piece, eh, boys?” 

“Not to be a crape-hanger, I’d say that we won’t 
see another Mexican unless it’s a bunch of guer¬ 
rillas down near Pinacate,” said Sid. 

“Shore! More fun!” grinned Big John. “Them 
rebel greasers has Mausers—but they cayn’t hit 
nawthin’ with them. Hope that Vasquez person 

8 o 


PINACATE 


aims to round ^em up an’ bring ’em along. ’Twell 
be some fine li’l party, I’m settin’ hyar to tell ye.” 

They rode on and dropped the Papago ponies 
shortly before pushing through the pass in the Qui- 
jotoas to Poso Blanco. There they encountered 
a new village of Papagoes and the inhabitants lined 
up to watch them go by. Big John, nothing loath, 
bought oats from them, as friendly as friendly! 
They, of course, had heard nothing of the row over 
at Red Tank. Some of them even did their best 
to sell the party baskets! 

‘^Shore, but a runner from Red Tank will git in 
hyar late to-night, fellers,” quoth Big John, as they 
rode out on the desert once more. “This lot of 
Injuns’ll be some surprised, I’m thinkin’! We’ll 
water at Poso Blanco an’ pull our freight for ole 
Montezuma Haid early to-morrow morning, or 
the hull kadoodle will be on our heels.” 

After dark a dry camp was made, in a patch of 
mesquite and palo verde, a long distance out from 
Poso Blanco. It had been a hard day of riding! 
Fifty miles, in all, had they covered, and now the 
country was changing from gray to red, and lava 
began to show up, black and glowering under the 
horses’ hoofs. 


8i 


RED MESA 


It was sharp and chilly in the dark before dawn 
when Big John roused out the camp next morning. 
‘‘Now, fellers, we’ll water for the last time at Wall’s 
Well by sun-up, an’ then make a long pull through 
the gap in the Growlers, which same brings us to 
Represa Tanks on the Camino del Diablo. You-all 
hev never been thar, an’ hev no idee what it’s like, 
but the Spaniards told the truth, fer once, when they 
named it the Road of the Devil. Thar’s always 
water in Represa, an’ from thare we kin work out 
to Cerro Colorado, the first of them extinct vol¬ 
canoes. If Red Mesa’s twenty mile northeast of 
Pinacate, as that pottery slate says, you’ll see her 
from thar.” 

The horses, freshened and invigorated with grass 
feed and the cool of night, led off spiritedly, all 
four riding together in a bunch. In two hours more 
the sky began to lighten in the east and then a shaft 
of red sunlight struck into living fire the top of a 
mountain that rose ahead of them, solitary and 
shrouded like a monk—Montezuma’s Head. Sid 
held his breath in wonderment, to see the red bath 
of color spread down the flanks of that huge and 
imposing presence, widening and broadening its base 
with color, bringing out the vivid green posts of 

82 


PINACATE 


saguarros, the dark greens of creosote, and the white 
patches of barrel cactus wrapped in their dense 
mantles of thorns. They were in the heart of the 
giant cactus country now. The floor of the desert 
was dotted all over with them. Everywhera their 
weird candelabra shapes stood like sentinels, up¬ 
holding bent and contorted arms, notes of bright 
green on a gray and pale green waste. 

As they rode nearer, Sid raised a shout of dis¬ 
covery. “First organ pipe cactus!’' he whooped, 
pointing excitedly. “See it? Up yonder on the 
hill!” 

Out of a cleft in the rock rose a nest of what 
seemed to be tall and crooked green horns, bunched 
together like some coral growth of the depths of 
the sea. A queer plant, but all this country was filled 
with these dry-soil and water-storing species, and 
nature did queer things with them to make them 
able to survive. 

Under the towering ramparts of Montezuma’s 
Head the horses were watered and canteens were 
filled. The wide flat stretch of arboreal desert across 
to the Growlers lay before them. It would be 
twenty miles of riding in the hot sun. Extra bags 
of feed were bought and hung over the saddle bows 

83 


RED MESA 


before they started, and from a lone cowman, an 
old settler who had come here for peace and quiet. 
Big John borrowed a five-gallon canvas water bag. 

That ‘Valley’’ was a flat stage floor, surrounded 
by an amphitheater of bare, granite mountains. 
They rose all about them, interminable distances 
away. Yet every mile of that crossing proved in¬ 
teresting, for the boys never grew tired of study¬ 
ing this abundant desert plant life. Saguarros in 
troops and regiments marched up and over the 
ridges or filled in the foregrounds of mesquite and 
palo verde at appropriate intervals. Patches of 
galleta grass that simply could not be ignored in¬ 
vited the horses to a step and a munch of fodder. 
Gambel’s quail ran through the bushes in droves 
and caused many a chase and much popping of the 
small six-shooters that the boys carried. An occa¬ 
sional road runner darted through the creosotes, 
long-legged and long-tailed. Desert wrens sang 
from the white choyas where their nests lay adroitly 
concealed from predatory hawks. It was high noon 
before the Growler mountains were reached. They 
rose abruptly out of the plain, so very steep and 
sudden that Scotty was convinced that the foothills 
that properly belong to all mountains must lay 

84 


PINACATE 


buried in the sand underneath the horses’ hoofs. A 
minute before, the cavalcade had been trotting 
easily across a table-land like a hall floor; in the next 
step the horses were laboring up a steep and rocky 
trail that raised them higher and higher with each 
step. 

At an elevation of some eight hundred feet they 
paused in a gap that broke through to the west 
and the party spied out the land spread out like a 
map below. Red and jagged mountains rose across 
the flat valley of a red and scowling land below 
them. A blue haze enveloped it all, out of which 
rose dark purple cones of extinct volcanoes, hun¬ 
dreds of them. It all seemed a black and purple 
mass of peaked hills, devoid of vegetation, sizzling 
in the sun. ‘‘Petrified hell,” Big John had well 
named it! 

As they looked, the haze of vapors shifted slowly, 
and out of the far distances appeared for a brief 
while a faint line of higher mountains, culminating 
in a couple of smooth and wrinkly teeth etched 
faintly against the blue. 

“That’s old Pinacate, boys,” said Big John. 
“Look hard at her; for you won’t see her again 
for a long while yet.” 


85 


RED MESA 


“Pinacate or bust!” said Sid solemnly. ‘‘Red 
Mesa must be somewhere between here and it, then, 
John, since we are now due northeast of the old 
boy.” 

“Mebbe,” retorted Big John, shaking his head. 
“Search me! If thar’s a mesa, such as we have up 
in the Hopi country, anywhere down hyar—I’ll eat 
it! Hey, Niltci!” 

The Navaho youth grunted negatively. He had 
the keenest eyes of them all. If there was a mesa, 
such as he was familiar with in his own country, 
he would have been the first to spy it out and exclaim 
over it. 

“Welp! Let’s get movin’,” said Big John. 
“Thar’s a leetle tank somewhere down this trail, ef 
she ain’t gone dry. She don’t last long after the 
rains in this country.” 

He and Niltci started on down the granite, but 
Sid and Scotty tarried to look out once more over 
this lava land, iron-bound and torrid in the heat 
of midday. 

“Lord, what a country!” exclaimed Scotty, de¬ 
jectedly. He was disturbed to find himself frankly 

afraid of it. Nothing here to exercise his construc- 

86 


PINACATE 


tive engineering instincts upon! Nothing — but 
Death! 

“To me it’s a challenge,” retorted Sid brightly. 
“It’s still another mood of grand old Dame Nature, 
of whose wonders there is no end! She cares noth¬ 
ing at all for Man; but each new aspect of her is 
a challenge to him to stay alive, if he dare. Doctor 
Hornaday”—Sid pronounced the name with all the 
fervor of boyish hero-worship — “he dared this 
country once, and discovered that mountain sheep and 
antelope had a refuge here. Those granite moun¬ 
tains across from us to the north of Pinacate are 
named after him. This lava looks good to me, for 
it makes a game sanctuary of this country forever. 
Except for your sake, old man. I’d rather there never; 
was a Red Mesa mine.” 

Scotty shrugged his shoulders impatiently. He 
was fast falling into a mood that had often been 
fatal to him before, that of trying to rush a thing 
through, jumping to a conclusion on presumptive 
evidence and then acting on that conclusion imme¬ 
diately, without trying out that homely old remedy 
known as “sticking around a bit.” 

“Well, le’s push through to Cerro Colorado and 
have it over with, Sid,” he urged. “If there’s no 

87 


RED MESA 


Red Mesa, the sooner we find it out and get away 
the better/’ 

But by nightfall they had reached only Represa 
Tank. It was an enormous run that their tired 
horses had made, for that hot country, had Scotty’s 
impatience only admitted it. The tank was a muddy 
little hole with a small oasis of grass and a grove 
of mesquites surrounding it. Near by was the 
famous Camino del Diablo, the thirst-haunted road 
to Yuma, one hundred and thirty miles away to the 
west—all dry desert travel. Big John and the boys 
sauntered out to look at it after supper. Up through 
a gap in two red lava hills led the old trail, a sure- 
enough road, as good (or bad) as the day it was 
made. Looking southeast behind them, the thing 
lost itself in the bushes of the Tule Desert. Why 
or when it had been built, the boys had no idea. 

Big John regarded it solemnly for a while. ‘Tn- 
juns. Greasers, prospectors an’ sodjers—they all had 
a purple time of it along this trail, boys!” he ex¬ 
claimed. ‘‘More’n four hundred people hev died 
along this Camino del Diablo, of thirst, exhaustion, 
an’ jist plumb discouragement.” 

Scotty shook his head ruefully. “Let’s make a 
break for that Cerro Colorado hill to-morrow, 

88 


PINACATE 


John,” he urged. ‘‘It’s about twenty miles northeast 
of Pinacate, so Red Mesa can't be more than five 
miles from it and directly between it and Pinacate. 
Ought to be a cinch to find it, if that plaque is O. K. 
And, if we don’t, we’ll clear out, pronto, and waste 
no more time on it, eh?” 

“I’ve never climbed Red Hill myself, son,” said 
Big John. “But as for clearin’ out—we cayn'tl 
Not yet awhile.” 

Sid grinned delightedly. “How come ?” he asked, 
all interest. 

“What think? Ef four men goes to chowin’ 
man’s food, in alligator-sized doses like you boys 
hev been doin’ for the last four days, how long d’ye 
suppose three skins of pemmican will last?” asked 
Big John sardonically. “We’re almost out of meat, 
boys. We’ll try Cerro Colorado to-morrow, an’ 
then. Red Mesa or no Red Mesa, we rolls our freight 
for them Hornaday mountains whar thar’s moun¬ 
tain sheep an’ antelope. Shoot or starve—that’s us, 
old timer!” 

“Suits me!” caroled Sid. “We’ve got to stock 
up before we start back, eh? Well—what did we 
bring Ruler and Blaze along for, anyhow!” he de¬ 
manded enthusiastically. 

89 


RED MESA 


Scotty was silent as they went back to camp. He 
was silent, too, and anxious all through the ride to 
Cerro Colorado next morning. Face to face with 
the reality, with these vast fields of scowling lava, 
with the dry and level plains of endless creosote 
bushes, with these parched and stunted bisangas, 
choyas, and saguarros, his dream shriveled and faded. 
A mine! Here, in all this five hundred square miles 
of barren lava! A railroad to it! How cross the 
grim ranges of Pinacate, looming up now not twenty 
miles away to the west? It all seemed so hopeless! 
It would take a far sterner and more determined man 
than he to push through such a project! 

But Sid sang happily as they rode toward Cerro 
Colorado. This wild, free land struck a response in 
the deepest notes in his being, the love and enjoyment 
of that freedom that every explorer, every pioneer, 
every adventurer feels to be his most precious birth¬ 
right; for which he will sacrifice ease, comfort, 
wealth, civilization itself. New species of this mar¬ 
velous desert life constantly claimed his attention. 
White trees, fluffy in foliage as cotton, appeared. 
‘‘Smoke Trees,” Big John named them. A new 

bush, all frosty white, met them along the march, 

90 


PINACATE 


securing a roothold even in crevices between red 
and sterile lava chunks as large as a ragged rock 
boulder. He recognized the species as the Brittle 
Bush and would have tried breaking its twigs 
except for the formidable and glistening thorns with 
which it was armed. Then came a vast carpet of 
lowly little plants that seemed made of frosted silver 
and Big John drew rein. He inspected them closely 
and then scanned the neighboring craters and all the 
vast plain about him with keen eyes. 

‘^Antelope fodder, fellershe announced. ‘Whar 
ye see thet leetle plant, thar’ll be pronghorns. They 
love it better than grass.” 

No antelope were in sight, however. Even if 
so, they would be quite invisible under that burn¬ 
ing sun. The horses loped on. Gradually there 
rose out of the desert a low hill, sheered off flat 
at its summit and covered with the dense lacery of 
creosote bushes. Cerro Colorado it was, and they 
picketed the animals out and began to climb its 
rocky slopes. Rough, sharp lava, in boulders of all 
sizes, marked the lava flow of geologic times from 
this hill; indeed the whole plain below was made 
entirely of the outpourings of this one crater. Once 

91 


RED MESA 


on its top they looked out over the country between 
them and Pinacate, who loomed up grim and impos¬ 
ing in the west and surrounded by his wide and 
desolate lava fields. Twenty dreary miles aw]ay 
was he! 

Sid had carried with him the Red Mesa plaque, 
bearing its enigmatical message in Latin which Fate 
had not permitted them yet to have translated and 
he now produced it for that last reading. The 
words they knew were still there, staring up at 
them from its red pottery surface. 

''XXI Milia S-0 ah Pinacate—Minem aurum et 
argentum—In Mesam Ruhram ^^—there was no mis¬ 
taking that! 

But the more they pored over the words the more 
unbelievable they became! It was surely a cruel 
joke, a wild tale that the Papagoes had brought to 
that old priest. Fra Pedro. It must be— now! For, 
below them stretched a vast plain, stippled all over 
with creosote bushes, clear to the base of Pinacate 
itself, twenty miles away! There was no Red Mesa, 
no hill of any sort on that plain! If those bearings 
on the plaque were true. Red Mesa ought to be in 

plain sight, right now, and not over five miles 

92 


PINACATE 


away! But there was nothing of the kind, anywhere 
in sight! 

Scotty finally turned to look at Sid, silent misery 
in his eyes. His dream had vanished. Already his 
thoughts were turning to the future. His next 
letter to his mother would not be the triumphant 
announcement of a valuable claim staked out, a 
triumphant return east to organize a company, but 
—well, nothing much; nothing but perhaps a brief 
note, saying that he had got a job somewhere. 

Sid gripped his hand sympathetically. There was 
nothing to say. If Red Mesa existed it certainly 
was not here. 

‘‘Cheer up, old top; le’s forget it and go hunting!’’ 
he grinned. 

But Scotty’s tenacious persistence now came to 
his rescue. He turned to Big John. “There’s a 
mine around Pinacate somewhere, John, sure as 
we stand here!” he gritted. “I doubt if the Papa- 
goes of that day knew how to tell that friar east or 
west in Spanish very clearly. And a mine wouldn’t 
be found in this lava but in granite outcroppings 
if I know anything about mining. I’m game to stay 
here and look for it, boys, while you’re hunting 
sheep.” 


93 


RED MESA 


“Yaas, you pore lambsaid Big John soothingly. 
‘‘I’ll tell ye: Them Hornaday mountains is granite. 
An’ they’re twenty miles northwest of Pinacate! 
Put that in yore face an’ chaw it, if it’s any com¬ 
fort to ye.” 


CHAPTER V 


RED MESA 

A CROSS a bare and sandy divide wallowed 
^ and crunched a weary party of horses, 
men, and dogs. Bare and desolate moun¬ 
tains surrounded them, and one rose in sheer gray 
granite, capped by a black stratum of lava, appar¬ 
ently two hundred feet thick. Of even desert vegeta¬ 
tion there was not a trace here. The sand buried 
everything, even the mountain sides. One could 
hear the faint lisp-lisp of it, moving stealthily along, 
grain by grain, under the flow of the southwesterly 
winds rolling up from the Gulf of California. 

“Shore this is the country that Gawd jest didn’t 
know what to do with!” ejaculated Big John, mop¬ 
ping his sweating forehead and getting a new bite 
on the corner of his bandanna with his teeth. 
“Whar’s yore desert gyarden, hyarabouts, Sid?” 

“We’ll come to it, just over the ridge—according 
to the map made by the Hornaday expedition,” re¬ 
plied Sid cheerily. For perhaps the twentieth time 

95 


RED MESA 


since they had left Represa Tank early that morning, 
that little book-page map was taken out and scanned 
by the whole party. Big John always liked to con¬ 
vince himself, by standing on the map as it were, 
that they were really following it. In these endless 
dunes it would be easy to take the wrong gap and 
miss MacDougal Pass altogether. 

‘*See?’^ said Sid, pointing out the landmarks, ‘‘that 
range ahead of us they named the Hornaday moun¬ 
tains. They abut on the Pass in a right angle. I’d 
give a lot to know what’s in that angle behind them! 
No one knows. There’s a little piece of the earth for 
you, Scotty, as unexplored as the North Pole!” 

Scotty said nothing. He had not yet recovered 
from the disappointment of finding Red Mesa ap¬ 
parently a myth. The whole business looked worse 
than ever now. Even assuming that the Papagoes 
might have been confused in translating east and 
west and so have given Fra Pedro the wrong com¬ 
pass bearing, twenty-one miles northzt;^.yf of Pina- 
cate would be right here, where they were now riding 
—and there was no such thing as a mesa in sight 
anywhere! The mountains here were all of rugged 
gray granite, tumbled and saw-toothed, with faint 
tinges of green showing where some hardy desert 

96 


RED MESA 


vegetation had got a roothold. Mesa! This was 
volcanic country, all cones or jagged outcroppings 
of granite! thought Scotty, disconsolately. 

He rode on dejectedly after Niltci and the dogs, 
who were scouring the sand for game tracks. A 
short way from here the first tracks of sheep had 
been seen by the Hornaday party, and further south 
antelope had been shot by John Phillips in the 
craters of the extinct volcanoes which dotted this 
country. 

'^There she is—^there^s the Pass!’' cried Sid 
triumphantly, as they topped the last of the awful 
sand ridges. His pointing finger showed them a 
river of desert vegetation below, a broad and rolling 
green river that flowed through the flat sandy plain 
of the Pass in masses of rich, living color. Tall 
green saguarros, like telegraph poles, rose in monu¬ 
mental spikes along the granite bases of the moun¬ 
tains on both sides. White fields of Bigelow’s 
choya barred their way, in big patches of them flung 
broadcast across the sands. Here and there the 
bright green puflFball of a palo verde made a note 
of vivid color against the prevailing dark shiny 
green of the creosotes. At sight of all that verdure 
the horses broke into a run, twisting and threading 

97 


RED MESA 


through the flat bare sand lanes. The dogs, now 
desert-wise, g^-lloped along beside them, barking 
excitedly and hardly noticing the choyas, avoiding 
them instinctively. 

And then Ruler gave tongue. Ow-ow-ow! he 
sang, the first blessed musical notes of the chase that 
had come from his throat since they had left the 
Catalinas! Niltci whooped a shrill challenge and 
lashed his mustang to full speed. After him put out 
Big John, and then Scotty, glad of any excitement 
to take his mind off his troubles. Sid rode leisurely 
after them, merely glancing down at the tracks the 
dog had discovered in the sand. 

‘‘Buck mule deer—a small one. Here, Blaze!— 
Heel!’^ he called sternly to the Airedale, who had 
started bounding after Ruler. Sid halted his horse 
and watched the three riders racing down the Pass. 
The frantic bellows of Ruler now told him that the 
deer had been sighted, and presently Sid got a 
distant glimpse of him, a tiny gray shape bouncing 
stiff-legged as he dodged through the desert cactus 
garden. 

“Mule deer all right I Guess we’ll stay out, 

Blazie,” he told the dog. “There are enough after 

98 


RED MESA 


him now to catch him with their bare hands! Let 
us try for mountain sheep, meanwhile.” 

He turned the pinto toward the base of the Horna- 
day Mountains which rose in rugged gray-green 
masses abruptly from the sand floor of the Pass. 
Their summits were ridged with rough pinnacles of 
gray granite. What might be on the other side of 
those ridges at once intrigued the exploring instincts 
in the boy. He was rather glad of this chance for a 
lone investigating hike—with good old Blaze his 
sole companion 1 

At the base of the mountain, where rock sloped up 
steeply from sand, he checked his horse and a joyful 
exclamation burst from him. An eager whine came 
from Blaze, as he, too, snuffed in the sand. Here 
they had discovered a regular mountain sheep run¬ 
way I The big cloven tracks, like pairs of roll biscuit 
prints, were plentiful and deeply graven in the sand. 
They ran both ways, but a vague impulse, coupled 
with a decided penchant for climbing up and explor¬ 
ing these mountains, led Sid to halt at the first lone 
track that led off upward from the main game trail. 
It was now nearly noon^ and he knew that the sheep 
would be high in the mountains at this time of day. 

He picketed Pinto out on a patch of grass and 

99 




I 


1 } } 


RED MESA 


started up on foot. Helped by Blaze’s nose it would 
not be very hard to follow that track. Where a 
print lacked in the rocky soil, eager barks from the 
Airedale now led Sid on. They were climbing fast 
and furiously before they knew it, the impetuous 
dog leading Sid up and up the immense craggy 
slopes. Below him the garden of the Pass rolled 
out in a great gray plain. A mile down it the faint 
belling of Ruler told him that the mule deer was 
still leading them a busy chase. His own sheep 
tracks were rising toward the ridge in a series of 
steep bounds, climbing with ease where Sid had 
to haul himself up or make toilsome detours to 
avoid formidable white choya bushes. Sid hoped 
it was a ram. Since the Montana hunt for the 
Ring-Necked Grizzly he had not shot a single speci¬ 
men of that king of American game animals, the 
Big-Horn. A Pinacate head, to match his Montana 
one, would look mightly well in the Colvin trophy 
den now located at their new ranch up in the Gila 
Canon. 

Presently Blaze let out a volleying bray and 
raced on up the rocks toward the ridge. There came 
a clatter of rolling stones, and Sid looked up to see 
a huge ram, followed by two ewes, silhouetted for 

100 



i I ( 


RED MESA 


an instant against the blue skyline. Immense curled 
horns encircled the big sheep’s head. For a moment 
he stopped and looked back, his superb head poised 
grandly, his horns branching out in regular sym¬ 
metrical spirals, his white ears standing out like 
thumbs in front of the horns and his white nose, 
cleft with the black mouth and nostril lines, a circle 
of white against his brown neck. 

Sid shouted to the dog sharply and raised his 
rifle, but before he could steady the sights the ram 
wheeled and was gone like a silent shadow. Blaze 
yelped and roared out his ferocious challenge, then 
at Sid’s repeated yells he turned and came back 
whining with impatience. The youth began to feel 
that Blaze would be a mere nuisance in this sheep 
hunting because of his lack of experience. Ruler 
would have circled craftily to head off the Big- 
Horn and drive him back on the hunter, but Blaze 
was always for the stern chase and the pitched 
battle! 

Sternly ordering the dog to heel, Sid climbed on 
up cautiously and reconnoitered through the rocks 
over the ridge. A shallow arroyo lay between him 
and the next ridge, and beyond that he saw over the 
mountain back, beyond a void of purple distance, a 

lOI 


RED MESA 


flat red table o£ rock, etched sharply by the ragged 
saw-tooth of the ridge between him and it. Sid 
glanced curiously at that odd rock formation for an 
instant, then his eyes swept the hollow below for 
sight of that band of sheep. Blaze whined and 
tugged frantically at his collar. He had seen them 
already, long before Sid’s slower eyes could pick 
them out in that mass of rocks and sparse vegetation 
below. 

“Gorry!—There they go! Steady, Blaze!” he 
gritted through his clenched teeth and then raised 
the rifle. The army carbine’s sights sought out the 
game swiftly. Sid had filed a forty-five degree cut on 
the front sight, so that it showed up as a little white 
mirror over the flat bar of his rear sight. Cutting 
the mirror square in two with the rear bar, he found 
the galloping ram and raised it up to just under the 
distant shoulder of the Big-Horn. 

Sid was just on the point of pressing the trigger 
—indeed had already felt the first movement of the 
creep of its bolt action—when a bright, shiny, hori¬ 
zontal flash,—the flash of an arrow—shot across 
the gray slopes of the ridge opposite! The ram 
staggered, stumbled, and struggled up a ledge, paw¬ 
ing convulsively with his hoofs. A second and a 


102 


RED MESA 


third arrow flash swept across the hillside and 
stopped in the ram’s flank. Sid gasped with as¬ 
tonishment. Those flashes were arrows! Then he 
grabbed Blaze’s collar instinctively, put down the 
rifle hurriedly, and closed his fingers around the 
dog’s muzzle so that he could not bark. 

Sid was too nonplussed for a moment to speak. 
Arrows! It could not be Niltci, for the Navaho 
boy had long since abandoned his bow, now that his 
white friends kept him in unlimited cartridges. Sid 
watched the ram in his death struggles, not daring 
to move so much as his head. Those arrows had 
been shot by some unknown Indian. These moun¬ 
tains were inhabited then. He could see the two 
ewes tearing wildly down the arroyo toward a grim 
and scowling lava field that lay far below. They 
disappeared around a cornet* of granite, some dis¬ 
tance down, but still the Indian who had fired the 
arrows did not come out of his hiding place. 

Who could he be? Sid knew that the Papagoes 
had long since abandoned this hunting ground. 
Their tank still remained, filled eternally from sea¬ 
son to season with rainfall, the sole reminder of 
that time when the tribe used to gather here to 
drive the sheep and antelope into the craters and 

103 


RED MESA 


slaughter them wholesale in the trap thus set. Now 
the Papagoes had become a pastoral people, raising 
corn, selling baskets, receiving their beef rations 
from a beneficent government, which, however, 
kept them virtually prisoners on two small reserva¬ 
tions. This Indian arrow-shooter might be a wan¬ 
dering Yaqui from Mexico, but that was hardly 
possible. It would go hard with him if caught on 
this side of the border by any of our rangers! 

Why did he not come out? Sid was sure that 
it was because he had heard Blazers bark coming up 
the mountain, followed by the appearance of those 
hunted sheep. He was lying low. 

For what? To shoot down the hunter the same 
way that he had laid low the ram? Well, if he had 
to wait all day, he would not be that victim, Sid 
decided, then and there! 

And meanwhile the ram lay a silent, pathetic heap 
of horns and hoofs, lonely under the hot sun, sur¬ 
rounded by the gray crags and green acacias that 
had been his home—while the enigma of his death 
remained still inscrutable. A stunted green saguarro 
rose near where he had fallen, a marking-post of the 
desert; the approach below him was guarded by a 
sturdy choya, to stumble into which would be agony. 

104 


RED MESA 


For a long time Sid stood watching the place 
where the arrows had seemed to come from, unde¬ 
cided what to do next. There was a craggy boulder 
over there, jutting out from the hillside, and behind 
it strung out cover in the shape of creosote bushes 
and rocky fastnesses of jumbled granite. But noth¬ 
ing moved. The unknown Indian still lay hidden, 
watching that ram carcass, too, like a trap set ready 
to spring. Sid lowered his head slowly, inch by 
inch, determined to play this waiting game to a finish 
himself. His muscles were trembling from holding 
his fixed poise so long and the under tendon of his 
right knee ached. 

It had never occurred to him that he was in any 
danger himself—when suddenly a savage growl 
rumbling in Blazers throat caused him to turn half 
way to the right. Instantly came the twang of a bow 
and the sharp hiss of an arrow. Blaze bawled out in 
pain, then sprawled out flat, with all four of his 
furry paws spread out like woolly broom handles, 
while his pained eyes looked up piteously to Sid. 
An arrow transfixed him above his shoulders. The 
dog seemed paralyzed as Sid dropped beside him, 
hot anger welling up in his heart. A hurt to one’s 
own person does not cause a whiter rage than one 

log 


RED MESA 


done to a dumb pet! Sid peered about him, seeking 
with glittering eye for something to fire at. Beside 
him Blaze moaned, sighed deeply, and then fell over 
stiffly, the arrow sticking in the rock and partly 
supporting him. Sid hesitated to pull it out. To 
start the blood spurting free now would kill what¬ 
ever chance he had yet for life—if he were not 
already gone. 

It seemed a most cruel shot, to Sid. Why had 
the Indian spared him and shot his dumb and faith¬ 
ful companion instead? Then he began to glimpse 
signs of wily red strategy in all this. The unknown 
enemy intended to capture him alwe if possible! 
With Blaze at his side it could not be done by any 
creeping attack, for the dog’s keen nose would im¬ 
mediately detect the near presence of any person 
whatever. 

Sid looked cautiously all about him, finger on 
trigger and rifle ready. To the south the saw-tooth 
ridge rose high above him to yet loftier levels. All 
about him were jagged pinnacles, rough and craggy 
and full of hollows and rocky points which could not 
be seen around. To creep back down the mountains, 
somehow, and then fire three shots for help as soon 
as possible seemed to him the best plan. He hated to 

io6 


RED MESA 


abandon Blaze while there was a spark of life left, 
but would it not be better for them to be separated 
anyhow, now? The dog might get away if he re¬ 
covered even if Sid should be captured. 

That arrow that had pierced Blaze had come from 
a rocky lair to the north of their position, just how 
far away he could not tell. The hiss of it had really 
been Sid^s first warning. Never again could he 
forget that sharp, ghostly whew! Making for a 
sheltering hollow which would be out of sight of the 
rocky lair, yet be open enough for him to see around 
him a short distance, Sid began to crawl down from 
the ridge. As yet he had hardly moved, but his 
heart was beating wildly. It seemed to him abso¬ 
lutely hopeless to get away from this mountain with 
he knew not how many hostile Indians all around 
him. The very idea that this desolate land was 
inhabited by even a small tribe seemed weird, un¬ 
canny. Not a track save their own had they seen 
so far. Even the old wagon ruts of the Hornaday 
expedition had long since been buried in the sands 
or washed out by the rains. It had been all new 
country, all virgin. If an Indian band lived here 
they could not be Papagoes, for the first one missing 
from the reservation would call out a troop of sol- 

107 


RED MESA 


diers after him. Had Vasquez, then, already gotten 
up from Mexico with some Yaquis? 

Sid thought of all possible solutions as he crept 
warily downhill, pausing before each craggy out¬ 
cropping in his path before daring to pass it. Then 
a glimpse of something red which moved behind a 
bush below to the left caused him to stop and raise 
his rifle, and, while poised in the tense set of the 
aim, a sudden, almost noiseless, rush of feet behind 
him sent electric shocks all through him! There 
was no time to even lower the rifle and turn around. 
Subconsciously his leg muscles leapt out wildly. He 
had an expectant sensation of a knife entering his 
back—^and then a thin band like a strap swept down 
and across his eyes and something tight gripped 
around his throat. Knees, and the heavy weight of 
a man on his back, bore him to earth. His arms 
sprawled out, dropping the rifle; his tongue shot out 
and out, gagging fiercely against that awful halter 
grip around his throat. Sid thought of the Thug 
strangling cloth in that last instant before an enor¬ 
mous drumming in his head gave way to blackness 
clouding over his eyes. Then came the heavy thump 
of the ground striking him, and unconsciousness. . . . 

It seemed but a very few minutes, the continuation 

io8 


RED MESA 


of some terrible dream, when his eyes opened again. 
He was lying face downward where he had fallen, 
and his lungs were pumping and sucking air in great 
draughts, as if recovering from some endless and 
vague period of suffocation. Blood was trickling 
down his face and making a little pool on the rock, 
while a cut or a bruise, he could not say which, over 
his eyebrows smarted sharply. 

Sid made a slight sound and attempted to turn 
over. Two grunts answered him. Immediately a 
strange Indian was at his side helping him turn over 
roughly, and he learned for the first time that his 
arms were pinioned behind. Sid looked up into the 
buck's face. It was round, hawklike and stern, with 
narrow black eyes that had no pity. He recognized 
the type as Apache instantly. There was none of the 
stolidity of the Pima and the Papago in that face, 
nor of the regular-featured, straight-nosed Navaho, 
like Niltci, who resembled a copper-colored English¬ 
man. This man looked more like some bird of prey, 
in the Roman hook of his nose and the craggy stern¬ 
ness of his mouth. The first word he uttered as he 
turned to his young companion confirmed Sid's 
thought, for it was in the harsh Athapascan dialect 
of the Apache. 


109 


RED MESA 


Between them they yanked the boy to his feet and 
started up the hill. Nothing further was said. 
They passed Blaze’s niche, the dog still lying on his 
side, a pathetic furry heap dominated by the arrow, 
and one of the Apaches pointed and let out a grunt. 
The other nodded. Evidently they considered him 
dead. They pushed Sid on down into the arroyo and 
crossed to where lay the ram. The older man then 
grunted a few words and at once set about paunch- 
ing the game. The younger led on with Sid. 

As they topped the rise of the next ridge, that 
same flat red rampart that Sid had noticed while 
stalking the ram burst on his view. But now it 
proved to be a really wonderful natural phenomenon. 
Fire, lava, a tremendous outpouring of the bowels 
of the earth had been at work here, no doubt during 
that period when the craters were formed and it 
had cast up that mighty red wall. Sid wished that 
Scotty, with his knowledge of geology, were with 
him now to study out the wonder of this vast red 
rampart before his eyes. The whole interior angle 
made by the bend of the mountains had been blown 
out here by lava explosion, the huge granite strata 
having been forced up on end like a pair of trap 
doors, making two enormous red ramparts, vertical- 


IIO 


KED MESA 


sided and running out from the rocky angle of the 
hills until their outer ends rose like towers. These 
terminated the red walls, a thousand feet from the 
ridge to the end of the lower gap where the lava had 
burst out. At that lower end the ramparts rose at 
least four hundred feet sheer from the granite slopes, 
and a great apron of black and scowling lava ran 
down from there at a steep slope, to lose itself under 
the sands far below. But the walls were of sheer 
granite, colored red by the fierce heat of that molten 
lava of ages ago. 

Red Mesa! Red Mesa! Red Mesa!—The cer¬ 
tainty of its being the lost mesa kept singing in 
Sid’s ears as they descended. No such geologic for¬ 
mation as this could exist anywhere around Pina- 
cate and not have been discovered before. Those 
ancient Papagoes who had reported it to Fra Pedro 
of 1680 no doubt had called it a mesa by reason 
of its resemblance to the true mesa formation. But, 
unlike the mesas of the north which are formed by 
water scouring and erosion, the walls of this one 
had been cast up bodily by the explosive force of 
pent-up lava. Still, there was resemblance enough 
to have given the place its name. Red Mesa, Sid was 
certain. 


Ill 


RED MESA 


The young Apache kept behind Sid as he prodded 
him on downward. There was no trail. His savage 
guide avoided choyas and chose the best possible 
routes for descent, that was all, while steadily the 
giant wall of Red Mesa frowned higher and nearer 
above them. Sid looked up as they approached the 
base of the west wall. Flat slabs of bare, smooth 
granite went up at a steep slope for perhaps a hun¬ 
dred feet. Above that the red wall rose sheer to 
fissured and turreted pinnacles three hundred feet 
above the top of that awful slope. Inaccessible from 
anywhere below was Red Mesa! 

After more rocky descent they came around the 
great tower at the lower end. Mighty and majestic, 
like the belfry of some huge cathedral, it rose out of 
the depths of the valley. A great smooth slope of 
black lava, shiny and slippery as glass, formed a 
slanting apron here, spanning the gap from tower to 
tower. But what an apron! Like the face of a 
dam, it spread across from one wall to the other, 
closing a gap three hundred feet wide and itself at 
least four hundred feet up to its edge, the towers of 
the two walls rising for half their height above it 
still. Geologically it was an imposing instance of 
the unlimited power of Nature. When that moun- 


II2 


RED MESA 


tain-side had burst, the whole round world must 
have shaken like a leaf and all the marine creatures 
in the great seas to the north have been swept over 
by a tidal wave of unexampled proportions! The 
lava had flowed out and downward, cooling slowly 
until this dam—for a cataract of fire—had formed 
and remained as a grim witness to the stupendous 
natural event that had once taken place here. 

Sid, the educated white boy, had become so inter¬ 
ested in reconstructing the geological aspects of this 
formation that he almost forgot the irksome tight¬ 
ness of the thongs that still bound his arms and the 
almost certain death to which he was being led. He 
knew only too well from border history the ways of 
the wild Apache I But the Indian guard behind him 
had no other thought but his duty as jailer. While 
Sid’s wondering eyes were scanning that giant apron 
of lava that flowed down out of Red Mesa, the 
Apache suddenly spun him violently around. Sid 
had one whirling glimpse of a small black opening in 
the lava above, looking like a ragged mouth, and 
his curiosity about it had just begun to leap up over¬ 
throwing the greater marvel of the whole cataclysm 
of Red Mesa, when his head was forcibly held from 
turning and his bandanna was whipped deftly across 


RED MESA 


his eyes. The sandy plain below disappeared from 
view, and in its place was now an impenetrable black¬ 
ness. 

Presently he felt the grip of two firm hands on 
his elbows. A vigorous push set his feet in motion 
to hold his balance. By the shortness of his step 
and the upward lift of it Sid knew they were climb¬ 
ing again. Often the Indian stooped down and took 
hold of his ankles to guide his footsteps to some 
secure place. Sid could tell by the opprobrious epi¬ 
thets in Apache with which the young fellow belab¬ 
ored him that he scorned Sid’s blind clumsiness and 
was angry and intolerant, but Sid made no sign 
that he understood the language. Once, though, he 
nearly gave himself away, when the buck shouted 
‘‘Right!” sharply in Apache and Sid instinctively 
moved his foot over that way, searching for a crevice 
in the lava. 

After a long and slow climb they stopped, and 
Sid felt the Indian’s fingers gripping him strongly 
around the back of the neck. It was useless to 
resist. His head was being forced silently down, 
and the boy submitted wonderingly. Then they went 
forward, bent over again, and twice he felt the top 
of his head striking bare and jagged rock above 

114 


RED MESA 


which cut painfully. Instantly he thought of that 
little black mouth in the lava apron that he had caught 
a mere glimpse of when the Indian was turning him 
around. They were in that cave now, whatever it 
was. It was hot and suffocating in here. Sid choked 
for breath and sneezed as faint sulphur fumes prin- 
gled in his nostrils. He had a sense of being urged 
slowly upward. Now and again the fingers on his 
neck would press him to earth and he would go for¬ 
ward on hands and knees, where the least attempt to 
raise his head would result in a painful scratch from 
the tunnel roof that was evidently above them. 

In time a draught of pure air began coming down 
from somewhere above. Sid could see nothing, yet 
with the buoyancy of youth he was strangely happy 
and also consumed with curiosity. They would 
probably stake him out and build a slow fire on 
his stomach when he got up out of this tunnel, but 
while it lasted it was all as exciting as exploring 
it on his own would have been! More air and purer 
came to him now. The sulphur fumes disappeared. 
Something wooden like an upright log ladder struck 
him on his forehead and the Indian raised him up 
and called out loudly. Muffled voices answered him 
from somewhere up above. Then he felt his guard 

115 


RED MESA 


stoop and lift him by the legs while invisible hands 
above reached down and seized him under the arm- 
pits. He was hauled up the ladder and then he 
sensed being in some sort of a room—^being guided 
across it. 

The indescribable sweetish odor of Indian was 
strong in here. Sid had been so often in tepees and 
hogans as to be able to recognize that smell instantly. 
All the races of man have a distinctive smell of 
their own, and the aboriginal ones, Malay, black boy, 
yellow man and red Indian are all agreed that the 
white man has a smell, too. 

'‘White man smell like sheep!” as a Piute chief 
had once truthfully put it 1 The odor of corn meal, 
burnt feathers, paints and greases told Sid, too, that 
he was in some sort of medicine lodge. It could not 
have been a kiva, for the dank smell of damp stone 
was wanting. 

Then a sudden lightening of all the cracks around 
that bandanna told him that he was in bright sunlight 
once more. There was the perfume of growing 
squash and melon and pepper, the faint odor of green 
beans, the smell of grass—and of water! Red Mesa 
was really a valley then, inclosed by two giant walls 

ii6 


RED MESA 


and shut ojff from below by that ancient lava apron! 
And it was inhabited by a band of Apache! 

That much Sid’s sense of reasoning had told him 
before the squeals of children and the cries of squaws 
and shouts of men came to his ears. People were 
all around him now, exclaiming in Apache, every 
word of which he understood. Then the deep voice 
of some one in authority came toward them and a 
guttural command to untie him was given. The 
bandanna was at once whisked from Sid’s eyes. He 
stood for a time blinking in the glare of the sun. 
High red walls rose up to right and left of him. A 
large tank of water, almost a pond, filled much of the 
basin between them, but there were strips of culti¬ 
vated plants along its borders, too, and here and 
there he noted a grass Apache hut. 

Sid fixed his eyes finally on a tall chief who con¬ 
fronted him. The man’s features were round, heavy 
and forceful, such as we are accustomed to associate 
with the faces of the captains of industry among 
our own people. His long, coarse hair fell around 
his ears, tied about the brows with home-woven red 
bayeta cloth. A single eagle’s feather sticking up 
from the back told Sid that this man was a rigid 
disciplinarian of the old school and a formalist in 

117 


RED MESA 


the customs of his tribe, for it signified only one 
coup, such as a far younger man than he would have 
made in the old days. He wore a white buckskin 
shirt, with the tails outside coming down nearly to 
his knees. Long white buckskin leggins that dis¬ 
appeared under the apron of his breech clout told 
Sid, further, that this chief was a primitive red 
man, or else had not seen white men for many years. 

As Sid’s eyes still blinked, getting accustomed to 
the strong light, a coppery grin cracked the chief’s 
features. 

‘Well! I’ll be—! What have we here!” he ex¬ 
claimed in excellent English. 

Then he turned angrily to the young buck at Sid’s 
side and burst into a storm of guttural Apache 
invective. 


CHAPTER VI 

THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 

\ 

T hat torrential outburst which raged out 
from the Apache chief seemed to scorch 
and wither with shame the young Indian 
buck who stood beside Sid. The chief was upbraid¬ 
ing him in the most scathing terms in the Apache 
language, as Sid understood it, for the folly of cap¬ 
turing and bringing here a white man to their 
stronghold. Sid’s own person was safe according 
to Indian honor so long as he remained in the enemy 
camp, but what to do with this white man, now that 
he was here, would be a matter that only the old 
men could decide in council. As for the youth, 
whose name Sid learned was Hano, he was being 
condemned to the direst penalties for his act. The 
chief finally paused, arms folded across his chest, 
and eyed the youth sternly, awaiting what reply the 
culprit could make. 

‘^The white man was spying on us, my father,” 

119 


RED MESA 


replied Hano, simply. seemed best to take him, 
lest he get away and tell others. 

‘'Why did ye not follow him, then? If he saw 
nothing you could have let him go! If he saw— 
kill and kill quickly!” thundered the angry chief. 
‘'Die thou shalt instead!” 

The youth hung his head, unable to answer. It 
disturbed Sid strangely to learn that this boy was 
indeed the chief’s son, and that this Spartan sen¬ 
tence was being passed on him by his own father. 
He himself would have pardoned Hano, for youth 
does not think far ahead; it acts mainly on impulse. 
That he, an enemy, might discover the secret strong¬ 
hold of an Apache clan and should therefore have 
been slain or taken seemed to Sid, too, the natural 
reasoning for Hano to have followed. Sid felt grate¬ 
ful that he had, for some obscure reason, probably 
the bond of youth itself, spared his life instead. 

The chief, however, paid Hano no further atten¬ 
tion but turned on Sid those piercing black eyes that 
seemed to look through and through him. 

“Young white man, who are you and what is your 
business down here?” he demanded sternly. 

“My name is Sidney Colvin, son of Colonel Col- 


120 


THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 


vin, U. S. Army, retired,'’ answered Sid, facing the 
chief respectfully. 

The Apache’s eyes widened for an instant, star¬ 
tled, if such a stoic could be. “Colvin!” he ex¬ 
claimed. 

Then all expression faded from his face. His 
hand, however, rose, involuntarily to touch a gold 
ornament that hung pendent from his neck. Sid 
thought for a moment that a play of memory seemed 
passing in the black inscrutable depths of his eyes. 
Under that eagle gaze, though, he himself could not 
long endure; in sheer embarrassment he dropped his 
own eyes until they, too, fastened themselves on the 
ornament. It was a gold twenty dollar piece, pierced 
with a small hole in its upper rim and hanging from 
a rude chain of beaten silver. To Sid the curious 
thing about it was that it was the sole thing of 
white-man origin about the chief’s person. 

“And your business?—a prospector, I suppose,” 
said the chief, after another silent scrutinizing 
interval. 

“No, ethnologist,” replied Sid quietly. 

“Ethnologist I” echoed the chief. An expression 
of strong disgust crossed his stern face. “These 
learned fools who misrepresent and misunderstand 

I2I 


BED MESA 


the Indian worse than all other white men!—Pah!” 

Sid was more than astonished at this outburst. 
This Apache had evidently been well educated—once 
—^perhaps at Carlisle. Why, then, had he come 
here to live with this wild band and become their 
chief? That could wait; at present he was glad to 
talk ethnology with this educated Indian, for Sid, 
too, had felt that disgust over the stupidity and lack 
of understanding displayed by the average ethnolo¬ 
gist’s treatise indicated in the chief’s tones. 

‘Tt’s astonishing how much they do misunder¬ 
stand you,” agreed Sid. ‘‘Knowing as they should 
the Indian’s fundamental belief that all life, man, ani¬ 
mal, and growing tree, has a soul which is the gift of 
the Great Mystery and returns to Him in the end, 
how can they report your Indian ceremonials as 
mere spirit worship, devil worship, sun worship— 
Gad! It makes my blood boil!” Sid spoke vehem¬ 
ently, warming up as his own indignation over the 
vapid misunderstandings and the utter lack of com¬ 
prehension of most ethnologists’ reports enraged 
him. “Chief, you know, and I know the Great 
Mystery! As one of your own great men has said, 
‘He who may be met alone, face to face, in the 
shadowy aisles of the forest, on the sunlit bosom 


122 


THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 


of the great prairie, upon dizzy spires and pinnacles 
of naked rock, or yonder in the jeweled vault of 
the night sky!’ Because the Indian is too reverent 
to speak of Him by name, our worthy ethnologists 
report that this and that tribe believes in no supreme 
God, only in spirits—bosh!” 

Sid’s eyes sparkled with the intensity of his feel¬ 
ing. He forgot for the time that he was a prisoner 
of a hostile tribe, in a desolate, barren region, far 
from white habitation. The burning sense of the 
injustice of even the best of us toward the Indian 
swept him away. He spoke out his convictions, as 
ardently as ever he had championed the Indian’s soul 
before those white professors who had come to 
study them here in the southwest—^and had mis¬ 
understood. 

The Apache’s eyes softened at the youth’s 
vehemence. ‘‘My son seems to comprehend some¬ 
thing of us. It’s astonishing—rare, in one of your 
race! I lived long among the whites—once,” he 
smiled sardonically. 'The massacre of my people 
at Apache Cave, what think you of that?” he asked. 

Sid realized that his attitude toward the whole 
Indian problem was being tested out by this wily 
chief; that upon his answer depended his life. Yet 

123 


RED MESA 


he simply replied out of his own convictions, with 
no thought of how it might affect his fate. 

pitiable business, chief!’' he answered. ‘‘Men, 
women, children, all shot down to the last one! I 
suppose it had to be, since you would not surrender. 
The Army had its orders, you know.” 

“Orders!” The chief drew himself up proudly. 
“The Apaches never surrender, to injustice!” he 
exclaimed. “I am Honanta, son of that Chief 
Chuntz who fell in that fight, white man!” 

Sid glanced up at him, surprised. “I always 
understood that not one Apache escaped alive from 
that cave-” he began, wonderingly. 

“No! Let me tell you. There was one humane 
officer among the white soldiers who entered that 
cave of death, after all was over. He came upon 
my mother, lying among the heaps of slain. She 
still lived, shot in three places. She held me, an 
infant, protectingly hid in her arms. A soldier 
raised his gun to end her life—^a wounded squaw 
would be a mere nuisance, you know!”—the chief 
interjected with bitter sarcasm—“but that officer 
struck up his rifle. He had them take my mother 

to the ambulances. And, out of the kindness of his 

124 



THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 


heart, that she might not die of starvation, he gave 
her—this.” 

Honanta raised his hand again to the gold piece. 

A curious sensation of excitement went through 
and through Sid. His own father. Colonel Colvin, 
had been a young second lieutenant of cavalry in 
that fatal fight of Apache Cave. But he had never 
mentioned the squaw who had survived, nor the 
twenty-dollar gold piece; in fact he had always been 
most reticent about that battle, regarding the whole 
subject with the most extreme distaste. Sid felt 
that even if Colonel Colvin were that humane officer, 
to attempt to establish his own relationship with him 
and so gain immunity would be regarded by this 
crafty chief as mere opportunism. 

‘‘The officer's name, did she ever learn it?” he 
contented himself with asking. 

The chief smiled enigmatically. “My son,” said 
he gently, “to-morrow I shall be able to give that 
Sun Dance that I vowed to the Great Mystery forty 
years ago. Is—is your father still living?” 

“Yes,” said Sid. “He has a new ranch up in the 
Gila Canon country. We came west again, after 
I settled down to work with your people. The lure 
of Arizona was always very strong with father. 

125 


RED MESA 


Here was the scene of his early active days; here, 
in that grand mountain region, he wants to live 
until his time comes. It’s a great country!” 

‘‘Once more, then, before I die, I must leave the 
Arms of the Great Mystery!” mused Honanta, more 
to himself than to Sid. Then his whole manner to¬ 
ward the youth changed and he motioned him cour¬ 
teously toward his large grass lodge. 

“The Arms of the Great Mystery!” So that was 
what they called Red Mesa! thought Sid as they 
walked toward the lodge. Truly, like great pro¬ 
tecting arms, those mighty red ramparts rose on each 
' side of this little valley, shielding this lost band 
of Apache forever against further encroachment. 
As to the chief’s remark about giving a Sun Dance, 
it seemed to Sid that he himself appeared to be a 
vital and necessary part of it. Whether he would 
be a sacrifice in it or what part he would be called 
to play in it was a mystery to him. To-morrow he 
would know, though! 

Sid entered the lodge with Honanta, Hano follow¬ 
ing submissively. He looked about him curiously 
at the giant hoops of ironwood overhead which 
formed its arches, at the dense thatch of galleta grass 
bundles which kept out rain and sun alike. There 

126 


THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 


,was little furniture. A red olla, sweating cool water 
on its porous surface, stood on a three-pronged 
fork in a corner. A gourd dipper hung beside it 
and at a motion from the chief Sid drank. There 
were bundles of cane-and-ironwood arrows which 
Sid noted were curiously tipped with native copper 
heads. There were bows strongly backed with bone; 
parfleche skins for storing dried meat and berries; 
baskets holding shelled corn. From the rafters hung 
strings of red peppers and dried corn ears, and loops 
of dried squash. Shallow baskets held red beans, 
specked with white dots. 

Sid sat down on a roll of skins. Hano, who had 
entered with them, still remained standing. He 
seemed to be waiting for something, and Sid noted 
that the chief had not yet ordered him to be seized 
and bound. After a time, while the chief was 
apparently thinking over some further questions, an 
interruption came—the sound of a woman’s voice 
crooning softly. She entered the lodge, beautiful 
as the night. She was clad in soft white buckskin, 
long-fringed, heavily beaded, and in her arms she 
bore a tiny bundle from which came soft infantile 
noises. 

Hano’s bronzed face was working in agony of 

127 


BED MESA 


feeling as she entered. Sid and the chief rose re¬ 
spectfully. 

‘‘One boon, my father!'' burst out Hano hoarsely 
as the girl hesitated before them, the soft smile 
of motherhood on her face; 

“Which is?^' queried the chief turning upon him 
sternly. 

“To perform the whispering ceremony for my 
newborn son—^before I die,^^ begged Hano brokenly. 

Sid’s heart gripped him as he watched the tiny 
bundle being passed across into the young father’s 
arms. He hugged his baby close; then pressed his 
mouth to the little ear that he uncovered. Sid 
knew that he was whispering the name of the Great 
Mystery into his son’s ear, the very first word of the 
human voice that the newborn Indian babe hears. It 
was an old, old ritual of ancient Indian custom. 

Then: “Farewell, little one!” he heard Hano’s 
anguished tones 'murmur as he passed the child 
over to its mother. The girl started back and looked 
at him astounded, then at Sid, and finally she turned 
to the chief, her eyes dark pools of questioning. 

“It must be, my daughter,” said Honanta. “My 
son has erred grievously. It is for the old men 
to decide.” 


128 


THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 


He blew on a bone battle-whistle which dangled 
along his thigh like a quirt. At the signal two war¬ 
riors appeared. 

“Take him to the medicine lodge! Bind!’^ 
ordered Honanta. He turned his back on Hano and 
covered his face. A suppressed, hurt sound, like 
some dumb animal mortally wounded, came from 
the girl and Sid felt his throat choking. Hano 
turned once more as they led him away. 

“Farewell, Nahla!” his voice rang. “Bring my 
little son to the stake, that he may see how a warrior 
can die.” 

For a long time there was a dead silence in the 
lodge. Sid glanced from time to time at the stoical, 
impassive face of the chief; then at the young wife, 
who sat huddled in the rounded end of the lodge, 
her newborn child in her arms and silent tears cours¬ 
ing down her cheeks. 

Grief had stricken this lodge—^and all because of 
him. Indian justice was stern, inexorable; on the 
same exalted plane as its religious conceptions, its 
four cornerstones of Indian morality — Truth, 
Honor, Courage, Chastity. For sparing him Hano 
was to be punished. Was he, too, doomed to take 
some awful part in to-morrow's Sun Dance? 

129 


RED MESA 


Sid knew vaguely of the Sun Dance. In present 
days it has degenerated among the Plains tribes 
into a brutal material thing, a degrading exhibition 
of suffering and endurance of no spiritual meaning 
whatever. But in the olden times it had been a 
thank-offering to the Great Mystery, vowed to Him 
in memory of some special deliverance from peril 
or certain death. But for the beneficent intervention 
of the Great Mystery the man had lost his life; there¬ 
fore all the original symbolism of the Sun Dance was 
of a potential death and a resurrection by the grace 
of the Great Mystery. But why should Honanta 
give this Sun Dance at this late date, forty years 
after the massacre at Apache Cave? Because some 
evidence of Honanta’s physical deliverer had come 
to light, Sid reasoned. That, too, was necessary 
for the full ceremony to be performed. If Honanta 
knew that that humane white officer’s name was 
Colvin, his own part in the ceremony was obvious. 
.What then of Hano? Could he be destined for 
some heartrending sacrifice on Honanta’s part? It 
was possible! Sid decided to rescue him, to get him 
out of Red Mesa and send him to Big John for 
help, if he would go. He planned, now, to find out 

13d 


THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 


where the medicine lodge was and then act when 
the time was ripe. 

Its location was shown him in the most unexpected 
manner. 

“She was a wonderful woman—^my mother!’' 
exclaimed Honanta suddenly, breaking his reverie 
and apparently continuing his narrative as if no 
interruption had occurred. “She escaped with me 
from that ambulance by night, for she had no wish 
to be brought a captive to the reservation that was 
then being allotted to my people. In the mountains 
we lived, together. She built a hut of sweet grass. 
She recovered from her wounds, healing them with 
plants taught my people by the Great Mystery. She 
fished and hunted like a man, carrying me always 
with her on her back. She taught me to love and 
respect the birds, who live very close to the Great 
Mystery. As I grew up, she taught me to know the 
animals, our brothers; to sing chants for their 
souls when I had to kill them for our needs. She 
taught me to reverence the bears, who are our 
mother clan by the First Man. Silence, love, rev¬ 
erence—these were my first lessons in life. Through 
her I learned to know the Great Mystery. To pray 
daily to Him after the morning bath, silently, with 

131 


RED MESA 


arms outstretched facing the sun, which is the most 
sublime of His creations. To seek Him on the high 
places, alone. To see Him at night, through the 
glory of the stars.** 

Sid listened, waiting respectfully while the chief 
paused again, sunk in reverie. As an ethnologist he 
was learning the true inwardness of the Indian’s soul 
from a red man’s own lips. For some reason 
Honanta seemed to have laid hold upon his sympathy 
and he now poured it all out as to the first white 
man who really comprehended the fundamentals of 
that marvelous Indian creed now lost to mankind 
forever. 

‘^As I grew up, our broken-hearted people turned 
to Christianity. It seemed to us the only thing the 
white man had which promised mercy and hope,** 
went on the chief. ‘T went to a mission school. I 
learned of Jesus— a, man after our own heart! I 
read the Bible, which, please remember, was written 
by men of my race, by men of the East—^by no one 
of your blue-eyed, conquering people who now 
dominate the earth. I saw the white men preaching 
the Bible with their lips, but their lust for money 
and power, their eternal buying and selling was 
always there. I saw that their lives flouted the Bible 

132 


THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 


at every step. I became disgusted. I knew that 
the teachings of Jesus and our own ancient religion 
were essentially the same. We used to live those 
teachings, too, long before the white man came. So 
I determined to return to our ancient faiths and 
customs. When I became a man I wandered in all 
desolate regions, seeking a spot where the white man 
was not. And I found it. Here, in this forgotten 
and inaccessible stronghold, which I named ‘The 
Arms of the Great Mystery,’ for they protect us 
forever. Here I brought my mother, and as many 
of her clan as I could find. One by one, they escaped 
from the reservation and joined me here. These are 
all that are left of the great Yellow Bear clan of 
the Apache.” 

Again came a silence. Sid felt strangely moved. 
He was torn between his duty to Scotty, his friend, 
and his new sympathies for this hunted band of a 
once free people in this their last refuge. For those 
copper arrowheads had told him that there was metal 
here; that Red Mesa really had a mine, as was re¬ 
ported by the Papagoes. His friendship for Scotty 
prompted him to find this mine and tell him its 
location once he should escape. Yet, to destroy the 
peace of this last band of the original red children 

133 


RED MESA 


of our country, to give over their last stronghold 
to the lust and greed of the white miners who would 
surely come here—could he do it, even for Scotty^s 
sake? 

‘'And here my mother died, full of years and 
honor,” went on the chief. “Come; I will show 
you!” He led the way out of the lodge. Along the 
borders of the deep, blue-green waters of the tank a 
path led to the substantial brush shelter built up in 
the interior juncture of the two high red walls. 
Every pole and stick of it had evidently been brought 
up from the surrounding desert, for no trees grew 
here, all the available soil having been given over to 
cultivation. Inside the house Sid saw all the cere¬ 
monial objects of the old-time Indian mystery 
dances, marriage basket trays in intricate designs 
of black, white, and red on the willow, baptismal 
bottle baskets made watertight by pihon gum, medi¬ 
cine bundles filled with healing herbs. And, in one 
particularly sacred shrine, the chief showed him a 
row of small bundles which Sid knew at once were 
mortuary relics. They contained the hair and per¬ 
haps a few mystic possessions of the dead of the 
tribe. The first bundle of these was heavily deco¬ 
rated, as if all the women of the band had lavished 

134 


THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 


their art and symbolism in bead work upon it in 
loving memory. 

‘‘My mother’s!” boomed the chief’s deep voice, 
laying his hand on it. 

Sid removed his sombrero and looked reverently. 
After a time he let his eyes wander around the dim 
recesses of the room. The chief remained standing, 
lost in reverie before the reliquary bundle of his 
mother, but Sid’s eyes searched for and finally 
found Hano, seated bound against a post in a dim 
corner under the rocky walls between whose fork 
the medicine lodge had been built. That there was 
a concealed opening in this rock somewhere near 
which led to the cave tunnel up which he had come 
the youth was sure. He examined the place keenly 
for an instant, and then turned and stood awaiting 
the chief’s further pleasure. 

“My white son is interested in the ethnology of 
our poor people? Why, then, does he come down 
here, around Pinacate, where there are no Indians ?” 
asked the chief as they went out the door. 

That was a knock-down poser for Sid to answer 
without time to think it over! How could he dis¬ 
close the real object of their trip—mining, the seek¬ 
ing of this very Red Mesa mine? Yet he could 

135 


RED MESA 


not plead ethnology as the purpose of this trip I To 
lie, to evade, would be impossible before those keen 
eyes that read truth unerringly. To lie and be 
caught in his own trap by the wily chief would 
mean death, under the ancient Indian customs under 
.which this band lived. A murderer, with them, 
might be pardoned, if he could show sufficient cause, 
but a liar was always summarily dealt with, for no 
one in the tribe felt safe with him who spoke with a 
forked tongue. 

“I have a friend,’’ answered Sid, after a pause in 
which Honanta stood with his eyes searching his 
to their depths, “I came with him. His reason for 
visiting Pinacate is not mine to tell you.” 

The chief smiled slightly. *Tt is good. Friend¬ 
ship of man for man is our highest test of character. 
He who betrays a friend, even under torture, is un¬ 
worthy. How many of you are there?” 

“Four,” said Sid. “One cowman guide, the white 
boy who is my friend, a Navaho youth and myself.” 

The chief looked relieved. Evidently he did not 
consider those three out there somewhere in the 
desert particularly formidable, nor that they could 
easily find Sid. 

“Go, my young brother! You are free of our 

136 


THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 


village. You cannot leave it, for the entrance is 
well guarded. We shall wait until my old men have 
spoken.” 

Honanta turned and stalked back to his lodge, 
leaving Sid free to wander at will. The youth at 
first regretted that he had not told the whole truth 
about his party, that he had neglected to mention 
the most important member of it—the dog. Ruler, 
who would surely track him here just as soon as Big 
John and Scotty started back to look for him. They 
would arrive at Red Mesa to-morrow morning, and, 
guard or no guard, Ruler would lead them to that 
cave mouth! There was no doubt of his own rescue. 
But it might mean a fight, might mean anything 
once Big John arrived on the scene! And for 
Scotty, with his acute mineralogical knowledge, to 
get one sight of Red Mesa would mean the end of 
the Yellow Bear clan’s peaceful days. There were 
two things for him to do now, Sid decided; to free 
Hano, and to escape himself—after which he could 
think out what further steps to take. 

Left to himself, Sid strolled around the pond 
under the high walls of Red Mesa. He looked 
curiously at the small patches of maize, growing in 
clumps very much as the Hopi plant them; at the 

137 


RED MESA 


borders of beans and peppers; at squash plants that 
ran riot up the stone walls, growing out of small 
crevices of soil in the rock. Every inch of soil was 
being cultivated. As it was the dry season, great 
woolly clouds of lavender and rose, empty of rain, 
were flying across high over the red ramparts in the 
blue sky. A few squaws were irrigating the higher 
plants, carrying up large jugs of water from the 
pond. 

A little further on he came to a deep gorge, cleft 
in the high rock, and Sid stopped, his heart beating 
swiftly. Here was the mine described on that Red 
Mesa plaque! It ran like a fissure through the 
granite, a wide seam of black lava trap, and with 
it was a vein of rich, dark ore. Pure copper smelted 
out by the heat of the lava glinted a dull black 
throughout the vein, and a still intenser black, gleam¬ 
ing with points of white, told of native silver nug¬ 
gets mixed with the copper. It was a big lode. It 
swept downward, passed under the dirt path under 
Cid's feet and descended into the dim blue depths of 
the tank. Here was Scotty’s mine, all right! 

In it two Apache were working now, making 
arrow points at a primitive forge up in the shadows 

138 


THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 


of the cleft, blowing a welding heat on a small pot 
fire with a bellows made of the skins and horns of 
the mountain sheep. They looked at Sid curiously 
and one grunted an exclamation in Apache at the 
other, but neither spoke to him. 

Then there was a commotion in the village. A 
hunter’s song came deep and resonant, from the 
depths of the medicine lodge. Presently there 
emerged two stalwart bucks, bearing the carcass of 
the ram that Sid had seen shot before his eyes that 
morning. The three arrows that still stuck in his 
side identified him for Sid. In addition its body 
was now gayly decorated with prayer sticks and 
symbolic feathers signifying thankful remembrance 
to the Great Mystery who had given them this food. 
All the village turned out rejoicing at the hunters’ 
song. From the grass huts came squealing children, 
laughing girls, and lithe young men, all sunburned 
black as negroes which gave Sid the idea that most 
of them had been born here. The procession came 
shouting and rejoicing along the path bordering the 
pond and then all followed the ram’s carcass into a 
large lodge down near the open lower end of the 
valley where evidently the old men of the council 

139 


RED MESA 


were to make the appropriate prayer—‘‘Spirit, par¬ 
take!” the Indian grace—over the game before 
dividing it among the band. 

Sid watched them depart. It seemed to him that 
a good time to act had now come. Honanta had not 
appeared. He was evidently in his lodge or else in 
a vapor bath hut near the pond preparing himself 
for his Sun Dance. One of the squaws had left her 
water jug standing by the brink of the tank, and it 
gave Sid the solution of a problem that had been 
troubling him for some time. He shouldered it 
and then walked swiftly toward the medicine lodge. 
There was no doubt now that the opening to the 
cave tunnel came out there, for out of it had just 
been brought the slain mountain sheep. He got to 
its door unperceived by any one and walked swiftly 
to the rear recess, his eyes rapidly accustoming them¬ 
selves to the gloom within. 

“Hanoi—Shall I free you?” he asked in Apache, 
as he groped his way to where the young buck sat 
bound. 

The Indian youth stared. If surprised at Sid’s 
speaking his own tongue, he gave no sign. Then 
he shook his head. 


140 


THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 

‘‘No: I await my father’s judgment,” he replied 
proudly. “An Apache does not run away.” 

“But listen, Hano,” said Sid, earnestly, “my peo¬ 
ple will surely come! They have a hound dog who 
can track me here. They will be very angry and 
there will be a fight. You are few, and my people 
are armed with revolvers and repeating rifles. There 
will be many killed, and all for nothing. But you 
can get by the guard down below. I cannot, with¬ 
out a fight and perhaps killing one of your people. 
You must go. My horse is tethered over at the foot 
of the mountain. Give him this water jar for me; 
he must be crazy with thirst by now. Then ride 
until you find my people. There are three; a big 
cowman, a boy like me, and a young Navaho. I 
think they are at Papago Tanks. Tell them that 
there is peace, and to come quickly.” 

A long wait ensued while Hano considered. 

“Besides, Hano—Mexicans are coming. We’ll 
need white men with rifles if your home is to be 
defended,” urged Sid, playing his last card. 

“My brother speaks wise words,” said Hano at 
length. “Cut, white boy!—I go!” 

Without waiting a moment more Sid drew his 
hunting knife and freed the young Apache. Then 

141 


RED MESA 


with a delicacy that forbade him to take any ad¬ 
vantage of Hano’s escape to find the tunnel en¬ 
trance, he turned his back and waited. There was 
a faint rustling; then he turned around to find Hano 
and the water jar vanished from the lodge. 


CHAPTER VII 


BLAZE 

I T was perhaps an hour after Sid and his 
Apache captors had gone by that Blaze finally 
came to. The dog moaned feebly; then he 
tried to rise to his feet. An aching, burning pain 
shot through his shoulders and there came a sharp 

I 

twinge as the arrow jerked loose from where its 
point had stuck in the rock. 

It galvanized Blaze to frenzied action. He could 
not know that that arrow, passing through just 
above the spinal vertebrae, had temporarily paralyzed 
him with the shock of its blow. All his doggy un¬ 
derstanding realized was that this awful thing burnt 
like a fire and must be shaken loose at once. At 
first he thrashed about recklessly trying to break it 
off or get rid of it, somehow, if rolling and plunging 
could do it. Then he snapped at the arrow ends 
savagely, shearing off point and feathers like the 
ends of a straw. 

This spasm of frenzy ended in a mad bolt down 

143 


RED MESA 


the mountain in search of Master. Big John was 
Blaze’s idol; the one human who knew everything 
and always gave him the most glorious times of his 
life. When hurt before, it had been always Big 
John, his man-partner of their hunts who, strong 
and tender, had somehow made his hurts come well. 
Sid, as Little Master was all right, but Blaze hardly 
gave him a thought now, for this trouble was too 
terrible and he must find Big John! Trembling all 
over and yelping every time the arrow stub struck 
against a passing bush, Blaze struggled on down the 
hill. The bone tops of his shoulder blades rubbed 
against this inexorable Thing that stuck tenaciously 
through the flesh above them and at every step they 
hurt worse than grinding a raw bone. Again and 
again he felt himself growing weak and giddy with 
the pain of it. Each stumble was to him an agony 
of roaring and helpless rage. Heroic, stoical old 
Blaze, who had fought bear and mountain lion times 
innumerable; been bitten, slashed, mauled with 
clawed paws; who had lost one ear in a fight with 
a timber wolf—^he found this thing to be the most 
maddening of all his experiences with pain. You 
could not fight back nor get hold of it, after that first 
savage crunch of his jaws had bitten off all the arrow 

144 


BLAZE 


that could be reached. It rode him thereafter like 
a spur that never let up. 

Blaze’s progress grew slower and slower. At 
times he would stop and howl dismally for some one 
to come and help him. Then, after a grim and 
expectant period of waiting, he would crawl on 
again, floundering and tumbling down the steep 
flanks of the mountain. In time he reached the 
plain, where they had started up after the ram. 
Here was Sid’s pinto, and the animal whinnied 
eagerly for he was already thirsty and weary of 
waiting for their return. Blaze’s nose led him back 
to the tracks of the main party, where the familiar 
scent of Big John’s white mustang at last smote 
his nostrils. 

It put new heart into the dog. Master’s horse! 
Now we were getting somewhere! He trotted on, 
enduring the pain in his shoulders stoically until it 
faded to a general dull ache. Nothing brushed the 
arrow stub, now. You went carefully around 
bushes and kept to the mustang’s trail, avoiding all 
thorns and cats-claws. Several miles further on he 
came to where the buck had been shot and butchered. 
The bones and pieces of raw meat left behind smelt 
good, but Blaze was feverish and would not eat, 

-145 


RED MESA 


His doggy instincts told him to starve out that fever. 
What lashed him most terribly now was the scourge 
of thirst. He had lost a good deal of blood, although 
the arrow had cut nothing vital. Water! He must 
have it! 

Big John and Scotty had ridden on toward 
Papago Tanks with the buck on saddle after the 
kill. They had not waited for Sid, for it was their 
custom when any one went off lone hunting not to 
expect him back before nightfall. Blaze followed 
on after the white mustang’s tracks, sore and weary, 
his tongue hanging out with thirst and a high fever 
raging in him. Oh, to find Master! He would 
know! He would get him a canteen or something! 
To drink and drink and drink! To have cool 
strong hands draw out this burning pain that seared 
his shoulders like a hot iron! Only the indomitable 
courage of his breed kept him up. Blaze was a 
thoroughbred. He did not know what a streak of 
cur blood was! Kootenai Firebrand, Culbertson 
Rex, Champion Swiveller, all famous lion dogs of 
the West, were among his forebears and they would 
not let him give up. He staggered on, his feet 
wabbling crazily under him as the trail wound on 
southward through a country of black lava cones 

146 


BLAZE 


all around him, with vitrified and scoriated lava 
under foot. 

Then Blaze stopped, for the horses had halted 
here. He looked wearily up toward a huge cone that 
rose to the east of him. Up that way these tracks 
led, and he must follow, too! 

He arrived at the top, at last, and then gave a 
feeble yelp of joy. Here Master had got down off 
his horse, and the smell of him was sweet in Blaze’s 
nostrils! Below him stretched out a vast amphi¬ 
theater, the sandy floor of a deep crater that was half 
a mile across. Through a gap in the opposite side 
the desert vegetation had come marching in, species 
by species, saguarro, bisanga, choya, creosote bush, 
to spread out on that wide floor three hundred feet 
below and cover it with green dots of vegetation. 
Blaze looked down, his doggy heart sinking with 
misgivings, for no one was down there. Could he 
ever muster up the strength to climb down into this 
thing? And where had Master come up out of it 
again? Only one set of tracks led down here and 
the descent was as steep as a chimney. 

A wild, fresh odor decided him to attempt it. At 
his feet he snuffed hoof tracks, small, pointed, with 
musky dew claws—a deer of some kind. Blaze de- 

147 


RED MESA 


cided. He did not know that they were antelope, 
for the smell was new to him, but at once the old 
hunting ardor surged up in his soul, overriding 
weariness and physical pain. He attempted a valiant 
bark, which sounded somehow hoarse and dry in his 
throat; then he plunged down the steep declivity after 
the horses. Around him rose high rim rock, red 
and purple and black. These two lava gaps were 
the only places where the crater could be entered 
at all. They all had gone down here; that was re¬ 
assuring. Here, too, were Ruler’s tracks, that four- 
footed companion whom Blaze secretly envied for his 
marvelous nose and openly despised for his absurd 
caution in attacking bear and lion. Here also was 
the smell of Indian, where Niltci had jumped off 
and led his mustang down by the bridle. And here 
Master and the other Young Master had dismounted 
and climbed down, side by side, their horses follow¬ 
ing most unwillingly as their sliding tracks showed. 

On the crater floor the party had separated and 
there had been gallopings about in every direction. 
Blaze followed the white mustang, for she bore Mas¬ 
ter, his oeloved. Soon he came upon a long smoky 
cartridge from the old .35 meat gun, and the mus¬ 
tang’s tracks veered sharply over to the right. The 

148 


BLAZE 


smell of fresh blood came to Blazers nose and he 
wabbled slowly out to the center of that vast vol¬ 
canic pit following the scent. A pile of entrails, 
shank bones, blood dried up by the thirsty sands— 
that was all, for him, of the antelope that had been 
shot here! 

Blaze lay down, completely tuckered out. With¬ 
out at least a drink of life-giving water he could 
not go a step further. The assembling and gal¬ 
loping tracks that led off up to that other gap told 
which way they had gone out. He could never make 
that ascent, now! Instinct told him to wait until 
sundown, for it was hot and sultry down here now 
and there was not a breath of air. He lay down, 
panting, consumed with thirst. When he tried, 
later, to rise again he found that his wound had 
stiffened and the whole top of his shoulders seemed 
one raw, immovable lump. 

He looked about him piteously, then raised his 
muzzle to the sky in a howl of dismay. Silence, of 
the brooding desert; and then an answer—the wild 
howl of a coyote! Blaze’s quick eye singled him 
out sitting up there in the gap, watching him wolf¬ 
like. His answering howl had not been of sympa- 

149 


RED MESA 


thy or anything like that, but to call other coyotes 
to help him prepare for this feast of dog flesh! 

The danger stiffened Blaze up and strengthened 
his moral fiber. A savage challenge rumbled in his 
throat as he rose stiffly to his feet and faced the 
coyote menacingly. Then a whine of pain came 
from him. He could not fight, now; but he would 
not howl again for help, at any rate! That signal 
was too well understood by these wild dogs that had 
no master! 

Blaze looked up at the coyote and then around him 
again. Should he climb up there and fight this 
fellow, anyhow, weak as he was, before any more 
of them came? He could never do it without, first, 
water! Then his eye fell on a small round brown 
object lying near by on the sand. He walked 
stiffly over to it and snuffed it. That thing was 
what his men drank water out of! It smelt of the 
young master, too! Scotty had forgotten his can¬ 
teen during the butchering of that antelope and left 
it behind, but all Blaze knew about it was that the 
thing smelt of him and held water. He rolled it 
over with his paw. An enticing splash came from 
inside. Instantly all that pent-up thirst torture 
burst out of him in a frantic effort to get at the 

150 


BLAZE 


water inside. He took the canvas case in his teeth 
and worried and shook it savagely. Of no avail! 
The cork held tight, and the thing dropped on the 
sand, the water inside tinkling maddeningly. Bl^lze 
stopped a moment to consider. This thing was 
something like a bone, really! It had a bone, of a 
kind, its spout, sticking out one side. He lay down, 
with his paws on the body of the canteen, and then 
began to chew and gnaw fiercely at the cork and tin 
of the nozzle. 

An Airedale’s jaws are the most formidable part 
of him. Those inch-long tushes can give a fright¬ 
ful slash, and with them two of the big 6o-pound 
western Airedales can pull down a mountain lion be¬ 
tween them. Blaze’s teeth closed on that canteen 
nozzle like crushing paper. The metal gave; the 
cork squeezed. A savage pull on it, a shake that 
would take the ear off another dog, wrenched it loose 
and broke away the solder in its joint. A thin 
stream of water began to trickle out through this 
crack as the canteen lay on the sand—and under it 
ran a long red tongue, curved like a spoon, lapping 
up greedily every drop as it flowed out 1 

After that Blaze felt better. He lay down awhile. 
The matted cake of dried blood and hair around the 


RED MESA 


arrow kept any flow from starting again, even with 
fresh water making new blood in his veins. It was 
getting cooler now. A huge circle of shadow began 
rapidly to creep out from the west toward the cen¬ 
ter of the crater. The coyote had moved down a 
hundred yards nearer. Another was singing his 
shrill song up on the rim, and working around 
stealthily to join the first one in the gap. 

Blaze got up, growling. He was very stiff and 
could only move those shoulders by enduring intense 
pain, but immediate attack was his best defense now, 
and he knew it. Steadily he climbed up the gap 
through the river of desert vegetation that flowed 
down its slope. The coyote was waiting for him, 
silent, crouched for a spring. His green oblique 
eyes glared at Blaze menacingly, as he drew near— 
his teeth were bared in a wicked snarl. 

Blaze increased his speed, heading straight for 
him, snarling savagely. The coyote was a little 
larger than he, but Blaze and Ruler had tackled the 
great timber wolf together, and he was not in the 
least afraid of him! At ten paces off he suddenly 
let out a volley of ferocious terrier barks, vengeful 
with the fury of the lion, terrifying to the creature 
attacked. Then he charged. 

152 


BLAZE 


That coyote did not wait! That savage attack, 
even by a wounded dog, was too much for his cow¬ 
ardly nature! There was a squeal, a yelp, a bawl 
of pain as Blaze’s fangs laid open his shoulder to 
the bone—and then a gray streak vanished through 
the creosotes so fast that nothing but a greyhound 
could have overtaken him! 

Blaze loped on, grim, dogged, determined. The 
sun was setting now, and travel would be more en¬ 
durable. Scotty’s canteen had given him new life. 
He was going to win through to camp if he had to 
bring in every coyote in the desert after him! The 
trail wound down around the flanks of the crater 
and brought him back to the sands again. From 
there it went on, mile after mile, while a grand and 
beetling mountain range loomed up nearer and 
nearer. 

Blaze felt himself growing weaker again. The 
sand had given way to the most awful of broken 
black lava under foot, rough and sharp beyond de¬ 
scription. The horses had picked their way over 
it with difficulty; to the weak and wounded dog it 
was a purgatory of toil and it took every last ounce 
of strength out of him. 

Darkness fell. Blaze could see fairly well in the 

153 


RED MESA 


dark, and he needed to, here! Thorny ocatillas, 
devilish choyas and stunted bisangas that were balls 
of sharp thorns outside, had to be seen and avoided 
if he would save his eyes. Twice he lay down and 
gave it all up. Only the steadily freshening scent of 
the white mustang’s tracks gave him courage to rise 
again and keep on. 

Then great walls of ragged black rock loomed 
up, dark and forbidding, ahead in the gloom. It 
seemed the end of all things to Blaze. What in all 
the world was he coming to! He stopped, shivering 
all over with the sharp cold of the desert night. His 
wound ached unbearably. He lay down puzzled, 
wearied at the mere sight of this hideous black rocky 
mass ahead. It was perhaps the tenth time since 
leaving the crater that he had done so. Blaze 
groaned and gave up the pursuit of Master in a final 
disconsolate howl. 

But this time the barking challenge of another 
dog answered, sounding faintly in his ears! 

Blaze raised his head. Ruler! He knew the 
hound’s voice well! He got up, yelped a hoarse, 
throaty cry and crawled on. Ruler’s challenge grew 
more and more menacing and then there came the 
sound of men’s voices. And then Master’s voice, 

154 


BLAZE 


ringing out, stern and vibrant: ‘‘Halt, thar! Is that 
you, Sid ?” it asked. 

Blaze gave a joyful little moan and crawled feebly 
into camp, licking humbly at Big John’s boots. 
Ruler, puzzled, snuffed over him, after trying an 
abortive attempt at a romp. Then the water-hun¬ 
ger became too strong for Blaze to endure longer 
and he crept on to where a tank glimmered under 
the stars, a rock-bound pool in the lava, and there 
he drank and drank and drank until his dry tongue 
could lap up no more. 

“Stand back, fellers! Fotch hyar a light. No, 
Sid!—and somethin’s happened to Blazie boy,” called 
out Big John’s voice in the dark. Niltci stirred up 
the camp fire, and presently Scotty came out of the 
boys’ green wall tent bearing a candle lantern. 

“Well, I’ll be plumb teetotally hornswoggled!** 
roared Big John, as the light fell on the back of the 
drinking Blaze. “Shore, he’s all bloody! An’ he’s 
got a stick through his neck— Come hyar, Niltci! 
We gotto see about this! Sid’s shore got hisself 
into trouble—dern his pesky hide!” 

Niltci made his peculiar exclamatory noise and 
sprang over to where Blaze still lay drinking. 

155 


RED MESA 


‘‘Arrow!’* he pronounced after a moment’s in¬ 
spection. 

“Well, ni be durned 1 ” grunted Big John. “Shore 
of it, Injun?” he questioned incredulously. 

Niltci nodded. Then, stooping and holding 
Blaze’s muzzle with his fingers, he gave a quick 
yank which drew out the shaft. Blaze groaned 
through his set teeth. His blood came in a stream 
and they were busy for a short time getting a ban¬ 
dage on it. Then the Indian picked up the arrow 
and examined it more closely. 

“Apache!” he declared. 

“No!” roared Big John. “Cayw’f be, Niltci! 
They ain’t an Apache between hyar and the White 
River country. I’m a gosh-durned fool, I am, an’ 
proud of it—I’ve lost one of them ornery boys, an’ 
some one has shot my dawg—^but ye cayn’t hand me 
that Apache stuff, nohow!” 

“Apache!” reiterated Niltci, with more emphasis. 
He pointed to the blood grooves on the shaft in con¬ 
firmation. All tribes make them in their own pe¬ 
culiar spiral lines. 

“What in the world’s happened to Sid, then, 
John?” queried Scotty, his awed, scared face ap¬ 
pearing in the circle of light. 

156 


BLAZE 


‘‘Search me, hombre!” grunted Big John. “You 
Blaze, ef you could only talk, now! But fellers, we 
gotto set down a-piece and figger this all out the 
best we kin. Sid ain’t back, but Blaze is; and with 
an arrer into him. What does it all mean? I told 
you I was a fool!” he vociferated. 

“Ruler’s the answer, John,” said Scotty, as they 
all went back to the camp fire carrying Blaze be¬ 
tween them. “We’ll put him on the back trail right 
off and then we’ll know something.” 

“Good haid, li’l man!” agreed Big John. “I’d do 
it, to-night, only we jist cayn’t work them bosses 
over that lava in the dark.” 

“Well, Vm going to, now!—-on foot, too!” said 
Scotty truculently, his Scotch dander rising. “It’s 
only about three miles back to the crater where we 
shot the antelope and I left my canteen. We’ll 
walk. Suppose Sid followed our trail there and got 
ambushed by some wandering Yaquis? You know 
how they hate the Mexicans. All whites look alike 
to them.” 

“Apache!” grunted Niltci stolidly. 

“All right; Apache, then!” conceded Scotty. 
“Sid’s in trouble with Indians somehow, and Blaze 
managed to get away and get here, with that arrow 

157 


RED MESA 


in him. Niltci can stay here and look after him 
and the horses. As for me, I can’t get back any 
too quick!” declared Scotty, with the vibrant sym¬ 
pathy of youth in his tones. ‘‘Here, Ruler!” 

“Hoi’ on thar, Scotty! Yore fixin’ to miss three 
bull’s-eyes in a row, thar, son. Of co’se I’m goin’, 
ef you are; so we’ll sorter git organized, fust. 
.Whar’s that ruck sack? We-all mought be gone 
three days, an’ Sid he’ll mebbe want medicines an’ 
bandages. By rights I ought to take Niltci and 
leave you hyar, Scotty, seein’ as this is Injun 
doin’s.” 

But Scotty was obdurate. Start he would, that 
night, and, as some one had to stay with Blaze and 
the horses, he insisted on it being Niltci. That 
didn’t suit Big John, for in a raw iron land like 
this the Indian boy was worth a dozen Scottys to 
him. The row gathered way, but you might as well 
argue with one of the lava boulders around Papago 
Tanks as try to convince a Scotchman! 

“Wall, s’pose you and Niltci do this-yer pasear, 
then? An’ I’ll stay,” said Big John, testily, by way 
of settling it. “Mind you don’t go further’n that 
crater, though, an’ then come back an’ report.” 

There being no further objections, Niltci and 

158 


BLAZE 


Scotty soon set off into the night, leading Ruler on 
a slip leash. Overhead swung the brilliant stars of 
an Arizona night, a glory of soft light in which 
crater cones, rugged lava pressure ridges and stunted 
saguarros sticking up out of the rocks showed dimly. 
Behind them the grand range of Pinacate rose 
gloomy and majestic, the eternal cloud of sulphur 
vapor around its summit blotting out a whole section 
of the star canopy to the south. Niltci led on noise¬ 
lessly, picking his way by eyesight that was as good 
as a cat’s in the dark. They passed white smoke 
trees, ghostly as clouds, in the darkness, growing 
in company with white brittle bushes out of dry 
crannies in the lava that could hardly support a 
cactus. 

An hour later they were toiling up the steeps of 
the crater once more. So far, not even a whine of 
discovery had come from Ruler. Big John had 
given them the hobbles of Sid’s pinto, to show the 
scent to the dog when the right time came to try 
to make him understand what was wanted. But 
Niltci himself knew the pinto’s tracks by some ob¬ 
scure difference in the hoof-mark, and he assured 
Scotty that so far not a sign of Sid’s horse had they 
come upon. 


159 


RED MESA 


‘‘He may have come down into the crater from 
the other gap, though,’* objected Scotty; “we’ll go 
down and get my canteen, anyhow.” 

They climbed down into the vast coliseum of the 
crater. It was dark as a well down there, and Niltci 
crept along on all fours, following the pony tracks. 
He pointed out Blaze’s paw prints as they went. The 
dog had been here, too, following their party of the 
afternoon. After a time Scotty gave a yelp of dis¬ 
covery and pounced on a round brown object lying 
on the sand. 

“Here’s my canteen, anyhow!” he crowed. “I 
left it here after we butchered the antelope.” 

Then a cry of surprise came from him as he 
stopped dead and held out the canteen to Niltci to 
examine. It was empty of water and the crooked 
angle of the spout showed that it had been cracked 
open. “It was more than half full this afternoon, 
I’m sure of that I” insisted Scotty, excitedly. “Some 
one’s been here beside us—^but why did he not un¬ 
cork it, then?” 

Niltci looked it over keenly. 

“Dog! Blaze do it. Him chew canteen. Him 
have come a long way,” was his verdict. 

He showed Scotty the dog’s tooth-marks and then 

i6o 


BLAZE 


replaced the canteen where Scotty had picked it up. 
There the whole story written in the sand was clear. 
Here Blaze, wild with thirst, had lain down with the 
canteen under his paws and chewed at it until he 
had worried the spout solder loose. 

‘^Dog heap thirsty! Got arrow back in moun¬ 
tains, me think,’^ declared Niltci. 

‘'Back in the Pass? You’re right I That’s about 
five miles from here. I’m game to walk it and find 
out something. First, though, Niltci, we’ll climb 
up the other gap and trace Blaze out of it. He- 
didn’t come out by the east gap, that’s sure. Sid 
may have been hunting in some crater to the east 
of us.” 

They started up that long slope down which 
flowed the river of desert vegetation. Their own 
tracks of the afternoon were here, and Blaze’s, too. 
The certainty that he had simply followed them out 
that way and then turned to the south became 
stronger as they climbed up. It was settled as sure 
at the summit of the gap, where Blaze’s paw prints 
showed that he had made the turn around the crater 
just as they had. 

Scotty and Niltci stood side by side, holding in 
Ruler who was whining eagerly now, crazy to go 

i6i 


RED MESA 


chasing the coyotes which were howling in the des¬ 
ert all around them. The blood-and-scent story of 
that one which Blaze had routed when he had at¬ 
tempted to bar his path had excited Ruler, and he 
had got into his doggy mind the idea that coyote 
was to be the night’s game. Otherwise this whole 
proceeding was still a mystery to him! 

Around them under the stars brooded a black and 
silent land, dead as the surface of the moon, the 
wide, flat and parched plain of the lava fields 
stretching away for fifteen miles to the east. Near 
by rose the jagged edges of the Rainbow Range, 
ragged saw-teeth which would be red and purple in 
the daytime. Now that range was barely distin¬ 
guishable under the faint light of the stars. 

But, as they looked, suddenly a tiny point of fire 
shot up on the far horizon to the east. It was high 
enough among the lower stars to surely be on a 
mountain or crater of some sort, yet so tiny and far 
away as to be almost indistinguishable in the desert 
haze. 

“There’s Sid I” shouted Scotty triumphantly, 
gripping Niltci’s buckskin-clad arm. “Now, how 
in the dickens did he ever get way over there ? And 
if so, why did not Blaze come in by this gap?” 

162 


BLAZE 


Niltci stared at the flickering point of light for 
some time without replying. At times it died down 
to a mere red coal, so small as to be lost to eyesight 
entirely. Again it would flare up and appear quite 
strong. 

^‘Mexicanos!” declared the Navaho boy at length. 

^‘Mexicans!” echoed Scotty amazedly. “Why, 
that’s Sid’s camp fire, Niltci. Isn’t it?” 

“No. Fire, he was be on Cerro Colorado. Mas¬ 
ter Sidney, him no have go theref/* answered Niltci. 

In a flash Scotty saw that he was right. For no 
conceivable reason could Sid have gone that far dis¬ 
tance to climb Cerro Colorado again. No; he had 
gotten into some sort of adventure with some wan¬ 
dering Indians back near the Hornaday Mountains, 
that was sure. Blaze’s tracks all argued that. The 
dog had got away, wounded, and had followed their 
own tracks to camp, step by step. 

Meanwhile, what of this Mexican camp fire on 
Cerro Colorado? It could only mean one thing: 
Vasquez had taken the train to Nogales in Mexico; 
had assembled a band of guerrillas; and they had 
ridden west by Sonoyta and Santo Domingo along 
the Sonoyta River, and now had climbed Cerro 

163 


RED MESA 


Colorado—for the same reason that Scotty and Sid 
had—to find Red Mesa! 

And they had been disappointed. What would 
their next move now be? Scotty quivered with ex¬ 
citement all over as a possible solution of that ques¬ 
tion now came to him. Suppose the Mexicans were 
to push straight across this lava field for Papago 
Tanks! It was only fifteen miles in an air line. 
Bad going across the lava, but the Hornaday party 
had done it, and these Mexican riders could get across 
in just three hours after daylight! 

Vasquez was not the man to give up a mine like 
Red Mesa without scouring this country for it, and 
Papago Tanks would be his natural base for such 
an expedition, Scotty argued to himself. These 
guerrillas would be upon them, then, by noon to¬ 
morrow ! And meanwhile they themselves were 
now on the wrong side of the border. It was a case 
of get out, and get out quick 1 But where to ? One 
thing was certain: Sid was back somewhere near 
the Pass. Their whole party must ‘Toll their 
freight,’^ as Big John would say, back there early 
next day, and leave no tracks behind them at Papago 
Tanks. 

Tracks! They had left a million of them, written 

164 


BLAZE 


plain in the sands, and there would be no rain to 
wash them out for a whole season yet. The more 
Scotty thought it over the more certain he was that 
F-I-G-H-T! was sure to be the outcome of all this I 
‘‘We^ll get back to camp, right sudden pronto, 
Niltci!” he cried. ‘^Mexicans is right. That’s 
Vasquez and Company, you bet! Le’s go 1” 


CHAPTER VIII 


HANO 

B earing the water jug for Sid's pony, 
Hano descended that sulphur-fumed tun¬ 
nel up which he had led the white boy not 
three hours before. It was now late in the after¬ 
noon; it would be nightfall before he could find 
the horse and ride. At the cave entrance one scout 
was on guard, a young fellow like Hano himself, 
not yet twenty. He rose respectfully as the chief's 
son came by. 

“Ai, Hano!" he greeted, for he had heard nothing 
of the disturbance up in the village. He did not re¬ 
mark on the water jug nor question Hano about it, 
for such would have been contrary to his whole 
training. Only squaws asked idle questions. 

Hano nodded and went on out. No one saw him 
from the lava basin brink, for the entire band was 
gathered in the council lodge for the sheep meat 
distribution. He climbed up the mountain side, 

i66 


HANO 


following his original course downward with Sid, 
and soon disappeared over the ridge. 

From there Hano began tracking Sid over on the 
Pass side. He noted with some surprise that the 
dog was now gone, but that did not matter much. 
Hanots face was set in a brown study of thought. 
He resembled his father, Honanta, strongly. The 
face was young and keen, with the high bony cheeks 
and the hard, thin facial muscles of youth, but it 
would acquire the same fullness as Honanta's with 
growing years. Indianlike, Hano was considering, 
not his own personal interests but his duty toward 
his tribe. To aid them he had broken his honor— 
that honor which required him to await the judg¬ 
ment of the old men even if unbound and free to go. 
It was repugnant to him to take the step because of 
Sid’s words, but his duty to the tribe was para¬ 
mount. The main thing, as he saw it, was to keep 
all these white men from ever discovering Red Mesa 
—The Arms of the Great Mystery. The white boy 
had spoken of Mexicanos coming. Hano knew them. 
Occasionally, not often, small parties of them had 
visited this region. They usually came by the Son- 
oyta River, following it until it lost itself in the 
sands to the south of Pinacate. From there they 

167 


RED MESA 


generally went to Represa Tank, from which the 
Camino del Diablo led them safely away from the 
mountains of Red Mesa. Only once in a great 
while had the Apache found it necessary to abolish 
one of these Mexican gentry who had become too 
inquisitive. 

The white boy had told him also of a hound 
which could track him to Red Mesa. Hano doubted 
this not at all, for he had often heard in the lodge, 
of a winter’s night, stories of the far-famed sagacity 
and the wonderful tracking nose of this dog of the 
white man’s. He would like to have a dog like that 
himself for tracking mountain sheep. To capture or 
to kill him was one of the things that Hano decided 
to attempt. 

Thus far Hano’s plan had reached only the point 
of determining to watch both parties and to act for 
the best. If one party of whites killed the other it 
would be a fine thing, for that would leave this 
white boy alone in Red Mesa, and he would never 
be allowed to leave it alive. Hano hoped that he 
would eventually consent to adoption into the tribe, 
for he seemed a fine youth and his heart was good, 
too, or he would not have remembered his pony’s 
thirst and brought that water jug. 

i68 


HANO 


His name, too, was in his favor. Col-vin! How 
often had Hano heard that name on his father’s lips 
when the story of that young white officer of long 
ago had been told! It was a sacred name in the 
clan. Because of it alone Honanta’s entire attitude 
toward this white youth had changed, Hano knew, 
before he himself had been led away to the medicine 
lodge. This young Colvin, too, had set him free 
and begged him to bring his friends to Red Mesa 
because the Mexicanos were coming. That was all 
very well, but Hano decided that he would not do 
that, except as a last resort. Better let them all kill 
each other; then there would be no one but the white 
youth to deal with. 

By this time Hano had climbed down the moun¬ 
tain on Sid’s trail and found the pony. It was after 
dusk, and the familiar plain of giant cactus and 
creosote bush, of choyas and mesquites was dark in 
the shadows cast by the surrounding mountains, but 
the pony, a piebald, was easily distinguishable, pick¬ 
eted in a trampled ring of galleta grass. He had 
scented Hano, for an eager whinny came from him 
and Hano met the pony tugging at his lariat and 
thrusting out bared teeth and thirsty lips toward him 
in dumb appeal. 


169 


RED MESA 


Pinto drank the water in that jug down in one 
huge suck. Then Hano untethered him, coiled the 
lariat and rode off, following his tracks back to the 
main party. Darkness fell as he followed the pony 
prints to the kill of the mule deer. Two hours of 
slow trailing under the stars led him to the huge, 
bare craters where, up the eastern one, the tracks 
now led. 

Hano walked the horse up the steep slopes, listen¬ 
ing in the dark constantly for a sign of these other 
white men. He paused at the crater edge and looked 
down. A vast mysterious black cistern was that 
crater well! 

Hano halted the pony and listened, for faint voices 
were coming up to him from below. They were 
down there! Presently the Hoo-ooo! of a hound’s 
throaty challenge rang out. The dog was below and 
facing him, Hano knew instinctively from the di¬ 
rection of that sound. He drew back and waited. 
More voices; words in the white man’s tongue. 
After a time he heard them climbing out slowly 
through the other gap. They stood on the opposite 
brink, one voice talking excitedly, audible in the dead 
of night even across the crater. Then they rode on. 

Hano followed down into the dim cavern, crossed 

170 


HANO 


its sandy floor and worked his horse up the opposite 
gap. There, far to the east, he discerned a flaring 
watch fire, over on the Red Tepee, as his tribe 
called Cerro Colorado. So that was what these 
white men had become excited about? he exclaimed 
mentally, as he watched the fire awhile. 

“Ugh! The Mexicanos!—Those that the white 
youth told me of I” decided Hano finally. As he 
watched, tiny flares began to move down the hill 
and out northwards on the plain. Hano counted 
twelve of these lights, moving slowly north appar¬ 
ently, though they were being carried by men on 
galloping horses. Immediately he divined it. Those 
lights were torches, carried by the Mexicans to see 
choyas ahead, and they were moving for Represa 
Tank! 

From there their next ride would be either up 
the Camino del Diablo or—to his own mountains! 
And the white boy said they were coming! 

What for, Hano did not know, but immediately 
all his plans underwent a sudden revolution. This 
must not be! There were twelve of the Mexicanos 
and only three of these other whites. The whole 
neighborhood from here to the Pass was filled with 
pony tracks made by the white boy’s friends. The 

171 


RED MESA 


Mexicans would be easily victorious over only three 

of them, and then the tracks would lead them to- 

His mind made up at once, Hano started the pony 
at once around the crater in the direction the white 
men had just gone. To combine with them, to 
bring them to Red Mesa and have their help in de¬ 
fending his home was his people’s only salvation— 
just as that white boy, Col-vin—^blessed name!— 
had said. 

But to ride on into a strange camp was entirely 
against Hano’s Indian training. It might end in 
being shot or some other absurd mistake. The thing 
to do, now, was to get in touch with this Navaho 
that the white boy had spoken of. He was an 
Indian and both tribes spoke the Athapascan tongue. 
Aided by the sign language they could understand 
each other. The Navaho was the one to meet first 1 
Hano halted his pony. He could not be very far 
behind these whites now. He sent out his voice in 
the challenge of the big-horn ram, for he knew that 
the Navaho would understand that unnatural voice 
in the dead of night as a signal. Then he waited, 
his eyes alert, ears listening eagerly. 

The bellow of a hound far ahead was his first 
reply. Then silence, profound and unbroken. After 

172 



HANO 


a short wait a man rose suddenly out of the ground 
before him. He pointed a rifle full on Hano: 
*‘Who are you?” he demanded in Navaho. 

‘Triend!” replied Hano, giving the peace sign. 

The Navaho did not lower his rifle. “That pony? 
Where did you get him?” he asked sternly. 

Hano explained rapidly in Apache, much of which 
the Navaho understood. He had scarcely time for 
more when the swift click of hound nails and the 
angry bellow of Ruler came out of the night. The 
dog rushed up toward Hano, barking savagely, 
tugging along Scotty who was holding back with all 
his strength on the leash. To a dog all strangers 
are enemies! 

“What’s all this, Niltci?” queried Scotty—“Good 
Lord!” 

He stopped astounded and stared up at what was 
evidently a strange Indian on Sid’s horse. 

“Apache!” said Niltci. “Him come from Master 
Sid. Say all right. Must come quick.” 

“Is Sid hurt?” asked Scotty grimly. 

“No. Him with Apache. Wants us to come 
quick,” reiterated the Navaho. 

“Well, I’ll be darned! Keep your eye on him, 
Niltci—it may be some damned ruse. We’ll take 

173 


RED MESA 


him in to see Big John and see what he says about 
it/’ decided Scotty. 

Walking on each side of Sid’s pinto, with rifles 
poised and ready for any treachery, they took Hano 
back to the camp at Papago Tanks. Big John roused 
out at their coming and threw a heap of brush on the 
fire. 

‘‘Jeemently-ding!—what you got thar!” he called 
out as the party came in. *^An Injun on Sid’s pony! 
—whar’d ye git him?—Say, fellers, I’m just suf¬ 
ferin’ for the news!” 

Scotty told him all Niltci had been able to learn 
from Hano during their march and then added the 
tale of their own discovery of the Mexicans. 

^^Shore’s a fine mess you’ve got yore old uncle 
inter!” grinned Big John. ‘^Them greasers is on 
Cerro Colorado, you say? Waal, we left our tracks 
on thet li’l hump, too! If it’s that Vasquez, he’s 
followin’ ’em now—to see whar we went next, sabe ? 
He won’t make fer these here lava diggin’s nohow; 
he’ll make for Represa! An’ he won’t lose no time 
over it, either! Then they comes inter the Pass, 
same’s we done. We’ll meet ’em thar, plumb bright 
an’ early to-morrow morning. They’ll be ridin’ all 

174 


HANO 


night. Thet fire ye saw on Cerro Colorado was 
jist a guide for night ridin'.” 

Hano nodded in confirmation. He told Niltci now 
that he had seen lights moving north across the plain 
before he left the crater rim. 

‘‘That settles it !’* exclaimed Big John. “We rolls 
our freight out'n hyar right sudden pronto! An^ 
it’s goin’ to be a sweet fight, if we don’t git up into 
the mountains before that bilin’ of greasers comes 
a-fannin’ and a-foggin’ through the Pass, old- 
timer I” 

Dynamic was that decision of Big John’s! The 
tent came down in a jiffy; the horses were roped and 
saddled; Blaze was made comfortable up on Sid’s 
pony, a bed being built for him of every available 
blanket piled on the folded tent for a base. With 
Hano leading off through the dark, the cavalcade 
started at once back across the lava. 

The horses’ shoes clinked on its flinty surface; 
ghostly desert vegetation and tumbled masses of 
petrified lava bordered their trail. After several 
hours of careful riding came the huge cones of the 
craters, moving by like grim phantoms past them as 
slowly light began to dawn in the east. Ahead they 
saw spread out before them the jungled garden of 

175 


BED MESA 


the Pass, its green poles of saguarros standing silent 
sentinels all about in the dawn and the gray moun¬ 
tains hemming it in all around. 

‘‘Now, fellers, we cayn’t take them bosses pro¬ 
miscuous up no mountains, an’ I ain’t goin’ to leave 
old Blazie, nohow!” declared Big John as he halted 
the train. “This white mustang’s about as easy to 
hide here as a Saskatchewan swan! Thar’s shore 
goin’ to be some perishin’ HI’ rodero when them 
spiggoty gents arrives in our midst! Two of us 
hev gotto stay with these bosses.” 

To hide them somewhere was the first thought of 
all. Big John’s puckered eyes searched the Pass 
for cover. Up ahead the mountains closed in to a 
narrow gap resembling a gunsight, a lone green 
saguarro upstanding in the center like a front sight 
in its V-notch. A small, bare rocky hillock to the 
right of the notch rose opposite a similar low spur 
terminating the range on their left. But down under 
the flanks of both of them they marked the high 
bushy green of mesquite. 

“A feller might lay low in thar boss an’ all,” 
declared Big John, sizing it up. 

Scotty did not answer. He was scanning the 
mountain sides which towered above them, mile on 

176 


HANO 


mile, shaggy and gray and covered with pale green 
desert growth to a high skyline above. Somewhere, 
over beyond that ridge maybe, Sid was in camp with 
the Apache. Either Hano or Ruler could lead him 
up there. But a peculiar telepathic influence kept 
whispering to him that all was not right with Sid, 
that he needed him now, was in some sort of danger 
or trouble. It might have been just his own imagi¬ 
nation; it might have been the subtle mental bond 
between the two chums, but the impulse was there 
and it led him to decide on climbing up at once. 

‘‘You take Niltci and the horses and go to the 
notch, John. If the Mexicans come in that way you 
can let them go by and then slip out through the 
gap and ride around the end of these mountains 
and join us. Meanwhile this Apache and I will 
climb up straight over the range to their camp. I 
have a hunch that it’s over that mountain somewhere. 
Here’s where we last saw Sid.” 

“Looks that way—’sensin’ that the Injun’d knife 
ye as soon as he got you alone up thar! I ain’t 
trustin’ no Injun. Crooked as a Mex. gambler’s 
deck, they be!” swore Big John emphatically. 

Hano listened and watched them pointing, un¬ 
easily. He wasn’t at all sure about showing these 

177 


RED MESA 


people Red Mesa after all. He had been reasoning 
over it silently as their party had ridden along, He 
had a new plan, now, and it was this: Here were 
four good horses. A number of Mexicanos, a dozen 
at least, were coming here after these white men. 
Well, then, would it not be the best service he could 
do for his tribe to induce them to lead the Mexicanos 
on a wild race out into the Tule Desert along the 
fearful Camino del Diablo, there to lose them all 
somewhere in the desert? He might die of thirst 
himself in the attempt. That was nothing; the 
peace and safety of his tribe was everything—any 
scheme to lead them all away from Red Mesa! 
These white men certainly could never survive that 
desert! 

He now grunted eagerly and began to speak 
earnestly to Niltci in mixed sign language and 
Apache. He pointed to the notch and made the sign 
of four horsemen with his fingers straddled over his 
left hand. He pointed to Blaze and made signs of 
concealing him in some dense cover. Then he 
pointed to the notch again and gave a pantomime of 
their party galloping through it with other horsemen 
in pursuit. 

‘T got ye, son 1” grinned Big John. ‘‘We-all give 

178 


HANO 


’em a desert race, hey? A-i idee!” he chuckled. 
“Scotty, if I know human natur, that pisen spig, 
that Vasquez”—Big John spat it out like a curse— 
“ain’t told them guerrillas nothin’ about no mine. 
Stolen church property’s what they think they’re 
after. They’ll be considerable peeved, an’ will begin 
shootin’ soon’s they sight us. Now if this Vasquez 
starts gittin’ careless with his hardware—an’ I git 
one good poke at him with the old meat gun— 
Sho!—there won’t be nobody know nothin* about 
that mine but us, see? Another thing: when he 
climbs Cerro Colorado and don’t see no Red Mesa, 
what does he do? Thinks he’s disremembered what 
he read on that Dago tablet, sabe? He’ll think I’m 
Sid, sabe, an’ he’ll chase us clar to Yuma, aimin’ to 
get hold of it again. We don’t want him ’round 
hyar, that’s sure! I’m strong fer the Apache’s 
racin’ scheme. Hyar’s one big chance to lose him 
good, savvy?” 

“How about Sid?” objected Scotty. 

“Oh, he’s all right! Thick as thieves with these 
Apaches, I’ll bet. He talks their lingo, you know.” 

Still the feeling remained persistent in Scotty’s 
mind that all was not right with Sid. Where were 

179 


RED MESA 


these Apaches, anyhow; and why had Hano not 
taken them to their encampment at once ? 

‘‘Fve got it!” he exclaimed at length. “You leave 
Ruler with me. Go on with Niltci and the Apache 
and try your race stunt. Meanwhile I’ll slip away, 
put Ruler on Sid’s track, and so find out where he’s 
gone myself.” 

“Not so good, son 1 Not so good 1” approved Big 
John whismically. “You sorter hang back, then, 
an’ git away when you kin. Try along the base of 
them mountains. I think Sid rode off that way 
when he left us. You leave them greasers to us! 
They won’t bother you none! C’mon, fellers, le’s 
get movin’. We ain’t got all the time there is!” 

Through Niltci he signified assent to Hano’s plan. 
They started across the sands for the notch which 
now lay in plain daylight before them glowing with 
the colors of the rising sun. Gradually the three 
ahead urged their ponies to a gallop, twisting and 
turning through the patches of choyas and spiny 
barrel cactus. 

Scotty fell behind. Ruler on his leash loping along 
beside him. As dense groves of mesquite barred 
their path he let himself get separated from the 
others and worked over toward the mountain base, 

i8o 


HANO 


keeping cover constantly between him and the party 
ahead. 

In five minutes Scotty was completely lost to them. 
After a time he came upon lone pony tracks in the 
sand. Beside them had trotted Blazers footprints. 
Here was where Sid had gone toward the mountain. 
Sheep hunting, no doubt, Scotty conjectured, for he 
knew that Sid liked to hunt alone. Nearer and 
nearer came the abrupt flanks of the mountains. 
Steep and rugged, rising in towering masses, the 
rocky flanks rolled up high above Scotty. Some¬ 
where up there Sid had climbed, he was sure. 

Presently he came upon a game trail, winding 
along in the sand around the rocky outcroppings. 
Sheep tracks! Scotty rode on hurriedly now, the 
hunting ardor rising within him. Presently he came 
to a little patch of galleta grass, trampled down in a 
ring around a picket pin, where a pony had fed. The 
story was plain to Scotty. Sid's pinto had been 
tethered here and had broken away after a time, 
probably because of thirst. 

No; the Apache had taken him away, for here 
were his moccasin prints! Here were Blaze's, too, 
coming from the mountains. It became more and 
more a puzzle to Scotty. What had really hap- 

i8i 


RED MESA 


pened to Sid? It looked more than ever like treach¬ 
ery—foul play—to Scotty. Somewhere up on the 
mountain Sid had encountered the Apaches perhaps. 
He had been held by them, since he had not re¬ 
turned. But Hano had been here and had taken 
his horse. What did it all mean? 

For a time Scotty hesitated, thinking seriously of 
riding after Big John to bring him and Niltci here 
to get their judgment on this discovery. Then he 
saw the firm heel print of Sid’s hunting boot lead¬ 
ing up the mountain side. The ardent impatience 
of youth at once overwhelmed him. Follow, and at 
once, he must! 

He put Ruler’s moist nose to the print: ''Sssuey, 
Ruler!—Go get Sid!— Sid!” he hissed in the dog’s 
ear. 

Ruler whined eagerly. Then, snuffing the trail, 
he climbed on upward, his bony rat tail swinging 
in circles as occasional yelps of discovery came from 
him. Scotty climbed after and was soon high in the 
rocks on the mountain flank, with the green plain 
of the Pass spread out far and wide below him. 

Meanwhile Big John and the two Indians had 
ridden on swiftly. The Pass narrowed and in ten 

182 


HANO 


minutes more they were at the base of the two low 
hills guarding the gap. Hano looked around him 
inquiringly. 

“Where is the white boy?’' he asked Niltci, anx¬ 
iously. 

“Oh, he’s back thar a-piece—he’s a slow rider,” 
laughed Big John reassuringly. Hano regarded them 
suspiciously a moment as Niltci translated. Then he 
shrugged his shoulders, his keen eyes searching the 
groves of mesquite and palo verde for signs of the 
laggard. A bed was made for Blaze under the 
shelter of a dense bunch of creosotes and he was 
tied there with a pan of water handy. Then the 
horses were tethered in hiding behind that growth 
of mesquite under the rock base which they had 
noted from down the Pass. Niltci and Big John 
unlimbered their rifles and climbed to a vantage 
point on the low rocky spur jutting out to the east 
of the main range. 

They were not many minutes too soon! Over 
the waste of sand dunes to the north a small white 
cavalcade was toiling slowly along toward them. 
The guerrillas, about a dozen of them, they noted, 
were riding two by two. They were clad in white, 
with huge white sombreros on head and the shining 

183 


RED MESA 


bands of cartridge belts crossing their chests at a 
slant. Over their backs jutted up the slender 
muzzles of Mausers. Dandy black boots heavily 
spurred in silver gleamed through the dust along 
the flanks of their horses. At the head of the col¬ 
umn alongside the leader rode a man clad in a 
striped serape, and at sight of him Big John’s eyes 
began to smoulder. 

He pointed him out to Niltci. “Thar’s that Vas- 
quez, the pisen, ornery, li’l horned toad that’s makin’ 
all the trouble, Niltci!” he growled. “The mine ain’t 
wuth shootin’ nobody fer, though. We’ll hev to 
throw an all-fired scare into him with a leetle fancy 
shootin’, sabe?” 

Niltci grunted under standingly and they both 
watched the cavalcade approaching. As they entered 
the Pass below, Hano’s wild eyes glared up at them. 
Now was the time for his great sacrifice! In just 
a little while longer these Mexicans would be through 
the gap and nearing those mountains whose secret 
he felt bound to protect. They must never be al¬ 
lowed to remain here, to trace out those tell-tale 
tracks! He looked up at Big John for the signal 
to dash down to the ponies and begin that race that 
could only end in the arid wastes of the Camino del 

184 


HANO 


Diablo. Once out there, they could shoot him with 
those long-range rifles if they were able. But die 
of thirst they all surely would! As for himself, he 
trusted in his desert knowledge to survive until it 
would be safe to return to Red Mesa. 

But, alas for the best laid plans of mice and 
men 1 Nature has a grim way of playing tricks that 
upset our best schemes—cruel tricks, sometimes. 
For, hardly had the Mexican riders gotten well 
through the gap with yells of delight as they fol¬ 
lowed the trail into that beautiful desert garden, 
when, from up on the high mountain flanks behind 
Big John’s position, came a sudden rolling of stones 
bounding down the hill. The Mexicans all halted 
and looked up, shouting to each other eagerly. Big 
John looked around inquiringly, and Hano gazed 
with an expression of anguish in his black eyes. Up 
there ranged a band of mountain sheep! A large 
band, seventeen in all, if any one had stopped to 
count them. Rams, ewes and young ones, they were 
all clattering along the summit of the ridge, outlined 
clearly against the sky and headed for the fastnesses 
of the higher slopes. 

At sight of them eager cries came from all the 
Mexicans. They began to dismount hurriedly. 

185 


RED MESA 


Rifles were unslung, cartridges hastily torn from the 
bandoliers. Then a wild race began up that moun¬ 
tain after those doomed sheep. 

Hano gave a grunt of dismay. That chase could 
only lead to one thing—the immediate discovery of 
Red Mesa, the hiding place of his tribe that lay be¬ 
yond those ridges! 


CHAPTER IX 


THE SUN DANCE 

S ID whirled swiftly, after Hano had gone. 
The slight swaying of a medicine skin— 
the pelt of an albino big horn—told him 
where the opening to the tunnel was. Lifting it 
aside, a jagged hole in the lava showed, and from 
below came up a faint tinge of sulphur smell. Sid 
thought first of going down into the tunnel and hid¬ 
ing in it somewhere, watching his chance to escape. 
Then he decided against it. He ought to give Hano 
all the time he could. That both of them had dis¬ 
appeared would be immediately noticed in the vil¬ 
lage. He looked around, thinking rapidly about 
what to do next. A bundle of plumed prayer sticks 
among the ritual appurtenances of the lodge caught 
his eye and it gave him the idea he was searching 
for. Going outside the lodge and closing its door, 
he secured it with a prayer stick. That sign would 
signify that the lodge was closed to all but medicine 
men and would keep out any casual stroller. 

187 


RED MESA 


It was now nearly sunset. Sid sought out 
Honanta again but he was not at his lodge. Sounds 
of busy life came from the grass huts. Fresh meat 
of the ram was being prepared for an evening feast; 
more of it was being hung on drying poles to cure 
in the sun. A knot of young braves was playing the 
hoop game, rolling the hoop swiftly along a path 
and striving to pierce it with lances as it sped. 

Sid watched them awhile, a feeling of melancholy 
growing on him. These people were happy, free, 
and independent. Under Honanta’s leadership they 
were living life simply and nobly, as the early Indi¬ 
ans did. To match it, you had to go back two hun¬ 
dred years to the time when religion was everything 
in an Indian's life, when warfare was an incentive 
to chivalry similar to our own warfare of the middle 
ages; when there were no white men to set one tribe 
against another, to teach them to scalp one another 
by offering a bounty for the hair of a fellow red- 
man, or to sell them whisky and weapons far more 
deadly than any they naturally used. 

Sid felt himself playing traitor to his best in¬ 
stincts when he thought of what the coming of 
Scotty and Big John would mean to these people. 
Scotty had come to the Pinacate region to find the 

i88 


THE SUN DANCE 


Red Mesa mine. Well he, Sid, had found it for 
him! But he had not dreamed to find it also the 
home of a happy and peaceful band of red men— 
that race with which Sid was becoming more and 
more in sympathy. 

But now look what would happen I Scotty would 
claim the mine, stake it out, ask him and Big John 
to sign as witnesses, and then file the claim with the 
government. And then, with the publishing of that 
claim, would come the inevitable stampede to this 
region. White men, hundreds of them; ships, rails, 
ore cars, burros, rough and sweating white miners 
— 3 , rabble that would sweep Honanta and his peo¬ 
ple away like chaff. It did Sid little good to tell 
himself that he had sent Hano to bring his friends 
so that they could defend Red Mesa against the 
Mexicans. That would be a mere incident in the 
march of progress. Vasquez and his guerrillas 
would surely come here, riding along the border 
from Nogales. They would find the pony tracks, 
climb the mountain and discover Red Mesa. After 
that, no doubt Vasquez would fight for it. But 
even if defeated and driven off, there was Scotty 
to be reckoned with, for his heart was set on this 
mine, his whole future depended on it. That he 

189 


RED MESA 


would insist on providing for these Indians, of 
course, would be his natural instincts for right and 
justice. But he would insist, too, on the mine being 
developed. Sid doubted whether it could be done, 
in the nature of his race, without first bringing 
about the destruction of these Apaches. Honanta 
would never give this place up without a fight for 
it against all comers. 

Sid wished that his father could be here to coun¬ 
sel him. He had almost a conviction that he was 
really that officer who had saved Honanta’s life in 
Apache Cave so long ago. It would be just like 
him. That deed would give his father vast influ¬ 
ence over the chief, and some way out of this tan¬ 
gle of perplexities would be found by the good old 
Colonel. Sid wished now that he had sent Hano 
direct to bring his father. The Colvin ranch was 
up in the Gila Canon on the railroad not a hundred 
miles away. The name was already well known in 
Arizona, their station near the ranch being named 
‘^Colvin^s" on the main line. Hano could have 
reached the rails by a fast push out to Tacna, and 
then have taken the train to Colvin’s. That would 
bring the Colonel here in two days at most, for 

190 


THE SUN DANCE 


there was a railroad to Ajo Mines only fifty miles 
away from Pinacate. 

But it was too late now. After-thought is mere 
aggravation! What would Hano really do, now 
that he was free? Sid asked himself. He con¬ 
fessed he didnT know. We know nothing of the 
Indian mind and its workings. We really know 
nothing of the race nor where they came from. Not 
Semitic, surely, for, Phcenician Jew or Arab, the 
accumulation of vast stores of wealth is the domi¬ 
nant Semitic trait, and the Indian scorns wealth and 
miserliness alike. 

Sid was convinced that they are of the same Aryan 
stock as ourselves. If so, his theory was that they 
must have migrated east from Asia at a far earlier 
period than our own ancestors’ westward migration, 
for we still have the Aryan word roots, while in 
America there are no less than three great Indian 
languages—Algonquin, Athapascan, Siouan—totally 
different, the peoples also as different in physical 
and moral characteristics as are our own Teutonic 
and Latin branches of the same Aryan stock. 

We developed individualism as we migrated west¬ 
ward. The Indian developed it, too, in this great 
new land, but he retained one distinctive Asiatic 


RED MESA 


trait—the impersonal ego—the sinking of self in the 
clan whose interests are always paramount to every¬ 
thing else. 

Reasoning from that, Sid tried to conjecture 
what Hano's motives would be. To keep all these 
whites, Mexicans and his own friends alike, away 
from Red Mesa, the home of his clan; to kill Ruler, 
the tracking dog, so that Sid could not be traced 
here, seemed to Sid what Hano would really do. He 
would act on that basis, Sid was sure. His own 
chance of rescue, then, was really very slight. His 
life was safe for twenty-four hours, no matter what 
the old men might decide in council. After that his 
fate really depended solely on the identity of his 
name with that Colvin of Apache Cave! But how 
prove to Honanta that that man was Colonel Colvin 
himself? To claim it without proof would be taken 
by the Indians as a mere forlorn hope to save his 
own life. Hano could have brought that proof for 
him, given time enough; now it was too late. Sid 
gave it all up; there was really nothing to do but 
wait events. 

The sun was setting as Sid finished his rumina¬ 
tions. The water pool already lay in shadow, the 
black bottom of its lava basin turning the deep blue- 

192 


THE SUN DANCE 


green of its waters to a mirror of shining black. A 
sharp shadow line was creeping in horizontal masses 
of dark maroon far up on the face of the east wall, 
every broken fissure and pinnacle of the west wall 
shadow etched on its high face. Sid kept one eye 
nervously on the door of the medicine lodge, won¬ 
dering how it was all going to turn out. No one 
had visited it yet, but discovery of Hano’s escape was 
sure and would come soon. 

As Sid waited and watched, Honanta came out of 
a sweat lodge near the borders of the tank. He 
was naked save for breech cloth and moccasins, and 
slowly he walked to the brink of the lava basin 
where it tumbled out between the high walls of Red 
Mesa. Like some magnificent bronze statue he stood 
for a time on the brink, facing the setting sun, his 
arms outstretched in silent prayer. Then an old 
man tottered out from the council lodge bearing a 
ceremonial pipe. Honanta took it from him and, 
after a few whiffs, held its bowl toward the setting 
sun. Again he dipped it reverently toward Mother 
Earth and the sunset ceremony was ended. Sid 
noted that he did not add the modern symbolism of 
offering the pipe to the four winds. 

After him every brave in the tribe, down to the 

193 


RED MESA 


little boys of eight, stood and did the same thing, 
that act of reverence to the Earth and Sun, the most 
important of the creations of the Great Mystery, 
which ethnologists often stupidly report as sun wor¬ 
ship, earth worship. But Sid knew that, like their 
nature worship, it was really reverencing the Great 
Mystery through His creations. He had long ago 
adopted that viewpoint as his own, and was about 
to share in the ceremony himself, claiming the privi¬ 
lege as an adopted Black foot, when a soft footfall 
along the path drew his attention. 

The girl Nahla was approaching the medicine 
lodge! She bore food and water for her husband, 
the prisoner. Sid felt tingles of excitement running 
all through him as he rose and walked rapidly after 
her. 

“Nahla!'' he called, as soon as they were far 
enough away from the rest of the village to be alone. 

The girl turned and faced him. 

“Do not enter!" he said softly in Apache. 

“Oh, have they killed him?" she almost shrieked. 
“Haf—I hate you!" Like a fury she faced the be¬ 
wildered Sid. It was his first experience with 
women—the instant feminine jumping to conclu- 

194 


THE SUN DANCE 


sions, the fierce and unreasoning hate for the cause 
of her sorrows. 

“No. He lives; but do not enter the lodge, I beg 
you. You must trust in me, Nahla!” said Sid 
earnestly. 

The girl shrugged her shoulders scornfully. 
“Pah! And is my husband to go without food and 
drink!” she spat out. With a lithe, sudden dash she 
had reached the lodge door and put her hand on the 
plumed prayer stick that held it shut. 

Sid leaped after her. “No!” he barked. “Listen, 
Nahla—Hano is gone! I freed him. I sent him. 
They do not know, yet.’’ 

The girl turned about, suspicion burning in her 
black eyes. Rapidly anguish filled her 

whole expression, then anger. “You made him run 
away!” she accused. “You made him break his 
honor—^you, white man with a serpent’s tongue!” 

With a swift movement she withdrew the prayer 
stick and flung wide the door. Unmindful of Sid’s 
expostulations she stood for a moment looking in¬ 
side. Then she turned and ran shrieking toward 
the huts. “Hano! My Hano! He is gone! He 
has broken his honor! The white man freed him! 

195 


RED MESA 


—Honanta! Honanta!” she cried, running along the 
path. 

Sid looked after her helplessly. Honanta was 
stalking toward her as fast as his dignity would per¬ 
mit. They stopped and exchanged a few words. 
Sid braced himself for what was coming, hoping 
that his wits would save him this time. 

Honanta came up to him, his face a dark thunder¬ 
cloud, angry lines seaming it. ^What is this, white 
boy?” he demanded. 

‘T freed Hano, chief. I had a good reason for 
it. You must trust me,” replied Sid, as stoutly as 
he could in the face of that towering passion. 

“Yes?” said Honanta, craftily, controlling him¬ 
self. “Why?” He was speaking in Apache now, 
and so was Sid, the subterfuge that he did not under¬ 
stand it being abandoned by both. 

“You shall learn, soon, chief. I am acting for 
the good of us all,” said Sid earnestly. 

Honanta studied him awhile in silence. “My son, 
because your name is Col-vin I have persuaded my 
old men to spare your life. My heart tells me that 
you may be the son of that officer who spared my 
mother and me—whose name also was Colvin. In 
freeing Hano I believe that you meant well. But it 

196 


THE SUN DANCE 

is dark to me why my jon, Hano, consented to run 
away! His honor required him to await the judg¬ 
ment of my old men, even if not a thong bound him.” 

‘‘He, too, did it for the sake of the tribe, 
Honanta,” declared Sid with profound conviction. 

Honanta knitted his brows, puzzled. “My son,” 
said he gently, “is not the truth best? No—^you 
do not lie!” he added hastily as a frown gathered in 
Sid^s face, “but you know more than we do. I must 
tell what you do know to my old men, for they are 
very wise and their decision is final. You have told 
me nothing that gray hairs can listen to, so far,” he 
concluded persuasively. 

Sid reflected. Would it not be better to tell the 
whole truth now and trust in Honanta’s judgment? 
He decided to tell part of it anyhow, for Big John 
and Scotty might be led here by Ruler to-morrow, 
he felt, and he might as well explain them now. 

“I sent Hano to bring my friends here,” he re¬ 
plied. “They have a tracking dog—a hound—^and 
could trace me here in any event, so I wanted to 
avoid a fight. The dog would lead them to Red 
Mesa, chief.” 

“And so you sent Hanoi"’ laughed Honanta. 
“My son Hano would kill that dog, kill those friends 

197 


RED MESA 


of yours, too, sooner than permit them to reach our 
home! Did you not think of that?” 

Sid attempted to show his surprise at this Indian 
point of view on his action, but the idea was not new; 
to him and the chief saw it. 

^^Come! There is more back of it, yet, my son 1” 
prompted Honanta. ‘‘The truth—and I will do what 
I can for you with the elders.” 

“There’s a party of Mexicans coming along the 
border,” replied Sid desperately. “They will find 
our tracks and trace us all to this place. I felt that 
.we needed my friends to help you defend it, 
Honanta. That’s the whole truth.” 

“Ha I—No I There is more 1” exclaimed Honanta, 
his choler rising. ‘Why are the Mexicanos coming? 
And why is your party down here? Do you think 
I do not know why? Somehow, the tale of our 
mine has gotten out! Don’t I know what white 
men will do to possess themselves of a mine? What 
won't they do!” he exclaimed bitterly. “You are 
all our enemies!” 

“Not I!” retorted Sid, stoutly. “I am an eth¬ 
nologist—no miner! The study of your people is 
my lifework, chief. Sympathy for them has be¬ 
come my ruling passion. Since I came here, my 

198 


THE SUN DANCE 


one idea has been to preserve this place forever as 
your home. I’ll seal my friend’s lips forever about 
this mine-” 

Sid stopped hastily, for he had made a slip that 
he had not intended. It did not escape Honanta, 
however. 

“No! we shall do that!” he said grimly. “My 
son, you are an enemy to us. You cannot help your¬ 
self. But, because of him who saved my mother 
and you who represent him, I have vowed to give a 
Sun Dance to-morrow. You must be present at it, 
for you are the physical evidence of my deliverer. 
According to our laws of hospitality you have one 
sun of immunity among us. But to-morrow, when 
his shadow reaches there/* the Chief pointed to a 
great crack on the inside of the west wall—“you 
must go forth—if you can. . . . As for your 
friends, we shall take care of them if Hano does 
not!” 

He turned and motioned to two of his braves. 
“Bind him!” he commanded. “Medicine lodge!” 

They stepped forward and seized Sid. In a very 
few minutes he found himself seated, firmly bound 
to the very post from which he had freed Hano but 
recently. The food Nahla had brought for Hano 

199 



RED MESA 


was fed him; then the door was shut and he was left 
in the darkness of the lodge. 

Sid reflected over it all as he sat, awaiting the 
long vigil until morning. Escape was impossible. 
Not only was he bound cunningly to the post so that 
any movement of even his hands was impossible, 
but two Apache guards squatted near him, silent 
as specters but watching him fixedly. 

“Go forth—if you can!” had been Honanta^s last 
words. In them Sid found his sole hope. Honanta 
was still his friend, but the logic of the situation 
had been too strong even for him. But Honanta 
was more than his friend. It was true, then, that 
Colonel Colvin was that white officer I Honanta had 
said so at last. Through his father he owed a debt 
that to an Indian is never paid. Honanta, too, was 
torn between two duties—that to his tribe and that 
to Sid as the Colonel’s son. In the subtle workings 
of the Indian mind there would surely be a loop¬ 
hole for him, somewhere, by Honanta, Sid felt. It 
was for him to find and utilize that loophole of es¬ 
cape. It would be something that would clear 
Honanta’s conscience as regards his tribe, yet ful¬ 
fill his obligation to him as the son of the man who 
had saved his life. 


200 


THE SUN DANCE 


What it would be, Sid could not imagine. He 
decided to keep his eyes open to-morrow, alert to 
seize the opportunity whatever it should be. Then, 
with the ability of youth to sleep anywhere and in 
any impossible posture, his head fell forward on his 
chest and he was soon oblivious of his and any one 
else’s troubles. 

Next morning as he was led from the lodge, a 
notable change in the village greeted him. A high 
Sun Dance pole had been erected during the night, 
with a cross bar secured near its top. From the 
bar dangled two effigies; the figure of a man and 
of a mountain sheep. Sid recognized the symbol of 
it. The figure represented Honanta, dead but for 
the intervention of the Great Mystery in the person 
of that white officer who had spared his mother. 
The mountain sheep represented man’s physical life, 
his principal means of sustenance, the gift of 
Mother Earth, replacing the buffalo of plains cere¬ 
monies. 

After a time Honanta appeared, nude save for his 
moccasins and breech clout; his hair was disheveled, 
his body daubed with clay. He dragged after him 
the skull of a mountain sheep, symbolizing the grave 
from which he had escaped by divine intervention. 


201 


RED MESA 


As the eastern sun flamed over the wall of Red 
Mesa, an old priest cut and scarified Honanta’s 
chest, signifying the natural accompaniments of a 
physical death. 

The rest of the tribe now formed in a line under 
the east wall and faced him. Sid himself was 
placed opposite Honanta, standing alone. He felt 
awed at the part he was taking—for he obviously 
represented the instrument through which the Great 
Mystery had shown His favor. 

Looking with fixed eyes on the sun, Honanta 
began the Sun Dance, dragging the skull after him 
and blowing from time to time on a sacred whistle 
which he kept pointed at the sun as it rose toward 
the zenith. 

Sid watched him, fascinated. He was seeing the 
original Sun Dance, the Indian symbol of death and 
resurrection, as it was before later changes degraded 
it into a meaningless exhibition of endurance under 
torture—about on the level with our own bull-ring 
and prize-fight arena. How long the dance would 
keep up depended solely upon Honanta’s physical en¬ 
durance. He was not much over forty years of age, 
so he would be yet in his prime, and his fervor would 


202 


THE SUN DANCE 


lead him to dance before the Great Mystery until 
his sinews could work no longer. 

Sid’s prayers went out to aid him. He liked to 
see a man give his best! This humbling of the body 
was nothing repulsive, when one thought of the ex¬ 
alted mood of that soul, engaged in an act of Indian 
worship so far above our own milder and, let us say, 
more self-indulgent and vanity-ridden forms of 
ritual. 

An hour passed; two hours, while still the devoted 
Honanta maintained the peculiar syncopated rhyth¬ 
mic dance of the Indian. Occasionally his voice rose 
in a wild, high chant, relating the story of his res¬ 
cue by that white officer of long ago. He called on 
the soul of his mother to witness; poured out prayers 
in thankful chants to the Great Mystery. 

Sid watched, himself entirely in sympathy, the 
whole band of Apaches gradually working them¬ 
selves to higher and higher exaltation of religious 
feeling. He hardly noted the passage of time until 
a glance over to the west wall brought home to him 
with a sudden shock that the shadow of the east 
wall had nearly reached that crack in the granite. 
His time was coming soon! 

Others had noticed it, too, for one of the elders 

203 


RED MESA 


spoke a word. With a final invocation to the Great 
Mystery, Honanta slowly brought his dance to a 
close. He tottered toward Sid, his eyes sightless, 
his hand groping until it gripped Sid’s. 

Sid felt a renewed fervor in that grip, but all 
Honanta said was: “My son, guide me—for you 
must now go forth from us.” 

One of the braves pressed Sid’s rifle into his 
hands. Leading Honanta, Sid started for the medi¬ 
cine lodge. Young bucks and elders surrounded 
them. They were fully armed and their faces ex¬ 
pressed the grim determination of the executioner. 
Sid guided Honanta to the outlet of the tunnel and 
himself raised the medicine sheepskin. 

“Careful, my. father!” he warned courteously, 
putting Honanta’s hands on the ladder post. 

They descended, the tunnel filled with creeping 
warriors, ahead and behind them. Sid could not 
see what chance there was for his life in this 1 To 
whirl and shoot the instant his foot left the cave?— 
before he could move, a flight of arrows would 
feather themselves in him I If Honanta had a loop¬ 
hole in mind it must be provided soon! 

But the party crept on down steadily. Then 
along each side of the cave entrance the bucks parted 

204 


THE SUN DANCE 


and lined up with arrow on string. Sid drew a 
long breath and stepped steadily to the entrance. Be¬ 
yond that he could not go, without death. Bows 
creaked as he turned slowly, to find arrows drawn 
to the head upon him. 

But Honanta was close behind him. ‘*You must 
go forth, now, my son,” he pronounced gravely. 

Sid tensed every muscle in his body, intending to 
throw himself down the lava crevice and then turn 
and shoot for his life. It was a forlorn hope, 
but- 

Two long, fringed, buckskinned arms closed 
slowly around him as his foot lifted for the first 
step. Sid halted wonderingly—^but the push of 
Honanta urged him on: 

“Go forth, my son —and I will go with thee!'* 
whispered the chief’s voice in his ear. “I cannot 
see thee slain! Let them shoot!” 

Honanta’s own arms were around him now, his 
body protectingly between him and the Apaches. 
That was the way he had solved his dilemma! 

Sid backed rebelliously. “No, chief! No! You 
must not!” he protested, attempting to turn in the 
chief’s arms. The'utter silence of astonishment 

205 



RED MESA 


was all around them, the Apaches hesitating, arrow; 
on bow, utterly disconcerted at this sudden devel¬ 
opment. 

‘‘On! While there is time!’^ grated the chief’s 
voice. “We shall escape to your people. They 
must never find Red Mesa. I trust you, my son, 
to keep silence!” urged Honanta. 

Sid nodded. Honanta had found the best way 
out of it all. They were about to go on, letting 
the tribe decide as it would, when the distant 
Rrrraammp! Rrrraammp! Rrrraammp! of rifle shots 
coming from over the mountain arrested them. 

“Halt! It is too late, Honanta!” barked Sid. 
“Listen!” 

A fusillade of distant rifle shots broke out; then 
the rapid, continuous discharge of a repeating rifle. 

“Ten shots!” said Sid. “That’s the Navaho’s 
Winchester, chief. Ours hold only five. Those 
other shots are Mausers —not hunting rifles! The 
Mexicans are here!” 

He pushed Honanta back in the cave and then 
faced the Apaches. “Warriors of the Apache, I 
must stay and fight with you!” his voice rang out. 
“Those rifles are of Mexicanos, coming to take your 

206 


THE SUN DANCE 


home. After it is all over you can do what you will 
with me. Is it peace?’’ 

The Apaches nodded sullenly and lowered their 
bows. Without Honanta they were leaderless. 

“Let no one go out!” ordered Sid. “We need 
every man right here 1” 


CHAPTER X 


THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA 

j 4 S the Mexican rifles whipped and sang in 
/-A the crags sheep after sheep staggered and 
Hano’s eyes blazed with indignation. 
At least six of these white-clad Mexicanos were up 
there and three of the sheep were killed, a noble 
ram and two ewes, but still the slaughter went on 
unceasingly. That band of big horns and a few 
others like it around Pinacate were almost the sole 
meat supply of Hano’s tribe. A few each year had 
be^ plenty to keep them all in meat. One ram 
would have been more than enough to feed all this 
band of white men all they could carry away, yet 
nothing less than the slaughter of them all—brutal, 
thoughtless, insensate killing for the mere pleasure 
of shooting seemed their purpose. Higher and 
higher the Mexican hunters climbed, following the 
doomed sheep up to the ridges. Once over them 


With a great bitter cry of rage at the sickening 

208 



THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA 


insatiate greed of it, Hano rose to his feet, snatched 
Niltci’s rifle from his hands and emptied it in rapid 
shots. He sent bullets whistling among the hunters 
up in the crags, then shot down horses among that 
group closely packed in the Pass below them. Dash¬ 
ing down the empty weapon with a curse of rage, he 
bounded down through the mesquite and was lost 
to sight. Niltci, himself overwhelmed with indig¬ 
nant sympathy over this useless slaughter of wild 
life, had not interfered with Hano and he now 
picked up the rifle and reloaded it. 

'^Good hunch, Injun! Shootin’ them bosses is 
our best bet arter all!” muttered Big John to him¬ 
self raising the meat gun to his shoulder. He aimed 
full at the serape-clad rider who sat his horse, yelling 
up at the hunters above and signaling urgently to 
them to return. 

“Greaser, I could kill you now, an* end all this to 
onct,*’ he muttered, “but ontil you shoots at me fust, 
I cayn’t do it.’* He lowered the sights a trifle and 
pulled trigger. Instantly the horse which the Mexi¬ 
can rode collapsed and fell kicking on the sands. 
Vasquez jumped free. 

^'Gringoes! Enemigos! Tira! Tiral’* he yelled, 
shaking his fists and pointing wildly. 

209 


RED MESA 


Big John went on shooting, picking off horse after 
horse. Niltci’s rifle was thundering in his ears, 
for the indignant Navaho had turned his fire on the 
sheep slaughterers now scrambling madly down the 
hill. A wild commotion had broken out in the con¬ 
fused knot of horses and men that were left of the 
cavalcade. Presently a band of five of them mounted 
and rode swiftly toward their position. Then down 
below a single war whoop rang out and Big John saw 
a lone Indian rider dash out into the Pass. It was 
Hano, making his sacrifice of leading as many as 
possible of the enemy after him away into the desert. 
A fusillade of shots greeted him; then the rapid 
clatter of hoofs as the whole band swept by, Hano 
far in the lead on Sid’s pony. Big John dropped 
the foremost horse as they passed below him; the 
rest swept by quirting their mounts furiously as 
Hano disappeared over a swale in the sand dunes. 

“Now we got to settle with Mister Vasquez!” 
exclaimed Big John grimly. “Thar’s still half a 
dozen of them with him, against the two of us up 
yonder.” 

But Niltci did not hear for he had crept up to a 
better position. He had seen nothing of Hano’s 


210 


THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA 


race as he was too hotly engaged with the Mexicans 
on the hillside. 

Big John peered out of his rocky lair, looking for 
‘That ornery Vasquez.^’ A glimpse of him showed 
high among the rocks; then his rifle barked and the 
bullet spanged the rocks near by. The other Mexi¬ 
cans were now well concealed in the crags and the 
crack of their rifles and the whine and smash of 
Mausers about Big John’s position told him that 
the battle was on in dead earnest. For a time the 
fight remained stationary, both sides so well con¬ 
cealed that no quickness of sight could register a 
direct hit. Then a shot rang out, much nearer to 
the left. 

“Bad business, Niltci,” called out Big John, 
“they’re working down this way an’ hev got us cor¬ 
nered on this little knoll. We gotto do a sneak 
around this point and git above them somehow.” 

Niltci had already foreseen the danger, for he was 
now creeping snakelike through the rocks around the 
right flank of the knoll. 

Big John grunted whimsically as he followed 
after: “Gosh dern it, I ain’t even goin’ to act 
civilized, pronto, if these hyar doin’s keeps up! I 
don’t like that party in the barber-pole poncho, none, 

2II 


I* 


RED MESA 


an’ I’ll get careless and drill daylight through him 
e£ I don’t watch myself!” he soliloquized. 

Then he came out on the right flank of the knoll, 
where all that vast interior angle of the mountain 
range burst at once into full view. For a moment 
he peered out and just stared! A huge black apron 
of lava fell out of the high lap of the mountains 
and spread far and wide down the slope until lost 
in the sands. But, dominating the gap where this 
lava flowed out, he saw two immense red walls, cast 
up like opening trapdoors of granite. From his 
position the whole formation could be grasped in its 
entirety and its resemblance to a mesa struck Big 
John at once. 

‘‘She looks jest like Thunder Mountain up near 
Zuni to me,” he muttered wonderingly, “only she’s 
red. Red Mesa, by gum 1” he exploded, as the con¬ 
viction smote upon him. “An’ that pesky Sid’s been 
and gone an’ found it! Thar’s whar he is, now, 
with them Apaches, I’ll bet my boss! Wouldn’t 
that knock ye dead?” 

Silent, majestic, imposing. Red Mesa shimmered 
in the morning sun, high above all. That it held the 
secret of Sid’s disappearance and explained the mys- 


212 


THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA 

tery of these Apaches was a conclusion that Big 
John jumped to instinctively. 

And then a shrill squall of triumph rang out high 
on the mountain side above him! Big John crawled 
to a better outlook and gazed upward. Exposed on 
a ragged pinnacle, Vasquez stood waving a rifle 
triumphantly over his head and screaming in Spanish 
unintelligibly. That he had seen Red Mesa, too, and 
was calling to himself all his guerrillas there was 
no doubt at all! 

Big John raised his rifle carefully, its tall front 
sight rising high above the rear bar. “Four hun¬ 
dred, five hundred; no, more’n six hundred yards!’* 
he muttered. “It’ll be some stretch for the ole meat 
gun, but, greaser, you’ve looked at this parteekler 
scenery all you’re entitled to 1” 

He held the bead steady, resting his elbow on a 
rock. Gradually his muscles cramped in a rigid 
pose while the tiny dot up there in the crags hov¬ 
ered motionless over the tip of his front sight. 

“Sho! greaser,” said Big John, lowering the rifle. 
“Y’ain’t done nawthin’ yit what I orter kill ye fer! 
Yore int’rested, jist now—it’s our chanct to make a 
run for it an’ git between you an’ th’ home plate. I’m 
thinkin’. Siddy boy, I aims to reach ye this trip!” 

213 


RED MESA 


He crept rapidly down to where Niltci lay con¬ 
cealed and touched him on the shoulder. Together 
they wormed swiftly down the mountain and reached 
the sands. Here the high flanks concealed them from 
the view of those above. After one sharp glance 
around by Niltci, both ran at full speed along the 
base. Up and up at a gentle slant for some half a 
mile the sand drift led them, until they had arrived 
at the foot of the lava flow where it dipped down be¬ 
low the sands. Along its vitrified surface they sped 
—^and then Big John stopped and gripped Niltci’s 
arm, breathing heavily. Above them on the lava 
slope an apparition had appeared. A man crouched 
in a sort of cave mouth up there, and he bore a rifle 
in his hands. He waved energetically to Big John 
to get under cover at once. 

“Ef that ain’t Sid you can call me a tin-horn 
gent!” gasped Big John. ''Whoopee, Sid! Keep 
down !—Look out, watch yourself!” he yelled out 
alarmedly. 

His outcry was fatal. A rifle whanged out up in 
the cliffs above and instantly came the sharp thud of 
a bullet. Big John coughed, groaned in the inflec¬ 
tionless cry of the unconscious, and tumbled in a 
heap on the rocks. Niltci gave one swift glance up- 

214 


THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA 


ward at the man in the serape who had fired, then 
grabbed Big John and dragged his huge shape un¬ 
der the shelter of a crag. Sid had disappeared as if 
struck flat, but the whip of his army carbine rang 
out sharply. A volley of shots replied, coming from 
all over the hillside. Bullets struck the lava apron 
and went whining off into space; more of them 
plunged down around Niltci’s position. 

Bits of granite flew in a sharp dust about him. 
The place was utterly untenable. Niltci looked for 
a better lair, noted a little hollow in the crags and 
then jumped out and exposed himself to draw their 
fire for an instant. He heard shot after shot whip¬ 
ping out from where Sid lay, felt the terrific smash 
of Mausers all around him, then he picked up Big 
John and raced with him for cover. A sharp touch 
seared his arm. He felt it grow paralyzed in spite 
of him and it let the cowman drop violently against 
the rough scoriated boulders. A groan came from 
Big John, showing that he still lived, then the 
Navaho flung himself into the lair and rolled the 
great limp body in after him. 

But this could not last! It was as hot a corner 
as man ever got into. Sooner or later flankers from 
the guerrillas above would find a position from 

215 


EED MESA 


which it could be fired into, and then nothing could 
save them. Niltci raised his voice in a low Navaho’s 
death chant, watching the rocks above him from a 
crevice in his lair, rifle poised for instant use. He 
needed help badly. Finally he sent out the word 
for it in a ringing call that would be understood by 
the Apaches, if any were near. It would be upon 
their honor to respond. 

An occasional desultory shot now came from Sid, 
up there on the lava apron. Above on the mountain 
was silence, sinister, and foreboding. The Mexicans 
were creeping carefully, silently downward toward 
him. Presently there would be a rush of over¬ 
whelming numbers—then death! 

Niltci waited, finger on trigger, eyes alert. A 
slight sound and the rolling of a stone came from 
somewhere above, but he could see nothing without 
exposing himself to he knew not what danger. It 
had been Big John who had rescued him from his 
own kinsmen, during those fanatical disturbances 
caused by the Black Panther of the Navaho, and 
Niltci would never desert him now! Coolly, resign¬ 
edly, he awaited that final rush that would be the 
end of them both. 

A rapid movement and the flinging of a body 

216 


THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA 


down behind some rocks sounded above him, right 
close now. Sid’s rifle sang out but its bullet was 
too late. Relentlessly they were closing in! 

A low groan sounded below Niltci. He glanced 
back out of the corner of his eye and saw that Big 
John’s eyes were open. His face was livid, drawn 
and gray, but he was turning feebly on his side and 
fumbling at the big revolver strapped to his thigh. 

“Watch yoreself—Injun—I’m gyardin’—yore 
rear,” muttered the cowman hoarsely. 

Niltci felt better. Big John was alive and could 
shoot, anyhow! He moved to a new position where 
he could command more of the rocks above. White- 
clad figures dodged instantly out of sight behind 
rocks as he appeared. They were all quite near him, 
not over forty yards off. All that was needed was 
some signal to precipitate a concerted rush. Niltci 
looked about him for help again. Only the silent 
lava wall and the surety that Sid was on watch up 
there gave him any hope at all. Well, it would soon 
come! All he hoped for was the chance of a few 
shots from the repeater before one of these buzzing 
Mauser bullets brought final oblivion. 

And then, far above on the mountain side, sounded 
the rapid belling of a hound 1 

217 


RED MESA 


Ruler! Scotty was coming, and he would take 
them all in the rear! Niltci fingered his trigger 
eagerly as the musical notes floated nearer and 
nearer: “Come, white boy! Come!’’ he sang, in 
urgent Navaho chanting. 

A heavy repeating rifle opened up, its familiar 
cannonlike roars sounding sweet in the Indian lad’s 
ears. That .405 could outrange anything on the 
mountain, and Scotty was a dead shot! 

Yells and cries broke out all around him above. 
Men rose bewildered while Niltci emptied his re¬ 
peater and Sid’s rifle spoke rapidly, shot after shot 
from the lava. The guerrillas were breaking, run¬ 
ning. Like snakes they were creeping off to new 
points, out of reach of that heavy .405 whose bullets 
split the granite where they struck! 

Niltci felt that the psychological moment for at¬ 
tack had come. This whole movement was bearing 
off to the left now, the only place where the guer¬ 
rillas could be safe from fire above and below. He 
leaped forward, darting from cover to cover and 
firing at every sight of a white figure among the 
rocks. Behind him he heard ringing Apache war 
whoops, and, looking back, saw the whole lava slope 
covered with buckskin-dad figures that had come 

218 


THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA 

from he knew not where. In a moment more his 
own mountain flank had swallowed them all up. 
Niltci gave a single answering cry and pressed on. 

Then he stopped, his heart stricken dead with 
sudden alarm, for a whirl of objurgations in Spanish 
raged below him and he saw a serape-clad figure 
racing along under the crags of the base, headed 
straight for where Big John lay concealed! Niltci 
turned and flung himself down the mountain, ex¬ 
posing himself recklessly. To get to the wounded 
Big John before this demon could finish him—ah, 
might the Great Mystery lend him wings I In three 
leaps he had reached the rocks above the lair. He 
jumped out, rifle at shoulder, unmindful of anything 
but not to be too late. Niltci got one glimpse of 
Vasquez, standing with rifle poised, his eyes glaring 
with surprise, for instead of Sid—the boy with the 
Red Mesa plaque—Big John lay facing him, lying 
on his side, cool resolution shining steadfastly in 
his eyes, the big revolver poised in a hand that never¬ 
theless shook with weakness. 

But before either of them could pull trigger a war 
bow twanged resonantly and the swift flash of an 
arrow swept across Niltci’s face. He saw Vasquez 
tottering, faltering, and crumpling slackly; heard the 

219 


RED MESA 


rifle and the revolver bellow out together—and then 
a tall Apache chief stood before him, breathing la- 
boredly, his eyes flashing the wild fire of war. Niltci 
held his ground and his rifle half raised. Peace or 
war with this chief, the Navaho boy faced him un¬ 
daunted and Niltci was going to defend that place 
to the last! Below him was the little rocky lair where 
lay Big John, silent, face downward. 

The Apache raised his hand in the peace sign. 
“Navaho, thou art a brave man! He that risks his 
life for a friend!” he dropped his arm significantly 
as if to say that no higher test of character existed. 
“Come; my young men pursue them, and none shall 
escape. Let us take this white man where his wounds 
can be cared for, my brother.” 

Just at that instant Sid came around the rocks 
about the lava lair. For a moment he stood looking, 
first at Big John lying silent as death, then at Niltci 
sitting dazedly and weak on the ground. His eyes 
glanced only once at the huddled figure of Vasquez. 

“Oh! oh!—Big John! Is he dead!” he cried, the 
sudden catch of a sob in his voice. 

He went over quickly to Big John and felt under 
his shirt. Then he looked up, worried, anxious, but 
hope shone in his eyes. “He's alive, Chief! But we 


220 


THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA 


must act quickly, for he's losing blood fast. Help 
me, Honanta," cried Sid urgently. 

Together they got at the wound. That Mauser 
had plunged downward, smashing through the shoul- 
der at a slant; tipped a lung, as the red froth on 
Big John’s lips showed, and had come out in a 
jagged tear below the big muscle on his chest. He 
breathed laboredly and his eyes were still closed. 
Sid shook his head and there were tears in his own 
eyes. To lose Big John, that faithful, devoted old 
friend who had raised him and Scotty from cubdom, 
had been with them on a dozen expeditions, a thou¬ 
sand hunts—it was unbelievable! 

“I’ve seen worse. My medicine men can cure 
him 1 ” said Honanta cheerily. “We shall bring him 
to our village, and all will be well. My son, your 
friends are our friends! They have done well 1 ” 

“Thank you, Honanta,” said Sid, simply. “I have 
yet one more thing to ask you to do, and then this 
whole business will come out all right.” 

“And that is?” asked the chief, smiling. 

“To come with me and meet my father,” said Sid 
earnestly. 

**Ai !—I shall go with you soon! But first, 


221 


RED MESA 


.where is my son, Hano? Not yet have I heard his 
>var cry,” replied Honanta anxiously. 

Niltci turned from his guard of the place and 
approached the chief. “He came to us, Apache. He 
led us to these mountains. Then came the Mexi- 
canos. We were to run them a race away into the 
desert with our fast horses. But they saw sheep 
on the mountain. They started killing them—ugh, 
but it was a slaughter sickening to see! More than 
many, many white men could eat, they shot! Then 
rose up your son, Hano, out of ambush and cursed 
them, as I too would have done. He fired my rifle 
at them, killing many horses. When the shells were 
all gone he left us. That is all I know.” 

“Who does know what became of Hano, then, 
Niltci?” inquired Sid eagerly. 

The Navaho pointed to the silent figure of Big 
John. 

“Hai 1 ” breathed Honanta^s deep voice. “He must 
live! I must know what has happened to my son! 
If he died, it was as a great chief should die, foi; 
his people. If he lives, this white man shall tell us 
and my best trackers shall seek for him. Come!” 

They all picked up the inanimate form of Big 
John and carried him slowly along the lava apron 


222 


THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA 


brink. From afar came the occasional crack of a 
rifle. The chase had gone a long distance to the 
westward. Once they heard the bellow of Scotty^s 
.405 from far down beyond the knoll. The peculiar 
volume of it was unmistakable, easily told from the 
sharper whip of the Mausers. Sid would have liked 
to j oin him, but his duty now was to see Big John 
under competent care. He had great faith in those 
Apache medicine bundles. There were healing herbs 
in them that the Indians alone knew; not all their 
‘^medicine” was sorcery and meaningless medicine 
dances, for in the treatment of wounds they were 
wonderful. 

Up the steep ascent and through the sulphur- 
fumed reaches of the cave tunnel they bore Big 
John. When he had been laid on a couch in the 
medicine lodge and the old men had set to work at 
his wounds, Sid called Niltci to him. 

‘T want to show you this Red Mesa, Niltci,” he 
said, “for my heart is heavy within me. We can 
do no further good here.” 

Together they went out into the little valley, 
Niltci’s cries of pleasure over its isolation and peace 
as detail after detail of it was grasped by his keen 
Indian mind singing in Sid's ears. It made him even 

223 


EED MESA 


more depressed. What would Scotty’s reaction to 
all this be? Scotty, the practical, hard-headed engi¬ 
neer, who would no doubt hop on this mine with a 
howl of delight and pooh-pooh any suggestion of 
abandoning it to the Apaches as their home. The 
first white man who staked out a claim here owned 
it. These Indians had no rights. How could he 
reconcile Gold with Nature in Scotty’s mind—dis¬ 
suade him from taking his civic rights, for the sake 
of this people? 

Sid wanted to have his mind made up before they 
set out to join Scotty. He watched Niltci as they 
came opposite the mine fissure. The Navaho boy 
stopped with another exclamation of pleasure. He 
was an expert silversmith himself, and he recognized 
the metal instantly amid the dull copper. But in 
Niltci’s eyes there showed no hint of possessing it, 
of taking this whole mine for himself. This metal 
was for all, the gift of Mother Earth to the whole 
tribe, according to his training. He would be just 
as welcome to set up his forge here and smelt all 
the silver he wanted as the Apaches were to make 
arrow tips of the copper. He told Sid this artless 
viewpoint as the latter questioned him, seeking light 
in his perplexity. 


224 


THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA 


Sid shook his head. How different from Scotty’s 
idea! A claim that gave exclusive ownership; vast 
engineering works; ships; an organization that 
would take all this metal for one man’s enrichment— 
that was the white man’s way! 

“Come, we must go find Scotty, Niltci,” said Sid 
despondently, leading him away. 

Honanta bid them good-by, assuring them that 
Big John was doing well. Sid went down the cave 
tunnel feeling like a traitor. His worst problem was 
still ahead of him, he thought. 

But the Great Mystery had planned otherwise, in 
His inscrutable ways. For, when they reached the 
lair where Big John had fallen, Vasquez was gone! 
Honanta’s arrow had not killed him; he had been 
simply feigning death while they were working over 
Big John! 


CHAPTER XI 


GOLD VERSUS NATURE 



OW goes it, Big John?’’ asked Sid 

cheerily, coming into the medicine 

* 

lodge the morning after the big fight. 

‘‘Bad breath, worse feet—I’m mostly carrion, I 
reckon,” smiled Big John weakly from his bandages. 
“All-same turkey-buzzard.” 

Sid laughed gayly. There was no quenching the 
giant Montanian’s humor so long as the breath of 
life existed in him! “Guess you’re better, all right!’' 
he answered, relieved. 

“Whar’s my dear friend. Mister Spigotty?” in¬ 
quired Big John with elaborate sarcasm. “Last I 
seen of him, he was fixin’ to turn loose a machine- 
gun onto me.” 

“We’re still worrying about him, John,” replied 
Sid seriously. “He got away. The chief’s arrow 
took him just as he was about to pull trigger on 
you, but I think that loose serape he wore saved him. 
An arrow just loses its punch in it. Anyway, he 

226 




GOLD VERSUS NATURE 


was only playing ’possum while we were fixing you 
up, thinking he was done for. We haven’t seen the 
last of him by a long shot. Ever hear the fate of 
the Enchanted Mesa, John? That’s what’s worry¬ 
ing me now.” 

“Yaas,” said Big John, slowly. ‘‘Earthquake 
shook down the trail up to her, didn’t it? Then the 
hull tribe up thar jest nat’rally starved to death.” 

“That’s what the ethnologists proved when they 
finally got up on Enchanted Mesa,” agreed Sid. 
“The Indian legend persisted that a tribe had once 
been marooned up on that sheer-walled stronghold. 
No one believed it was more than a legend until the 
mesa was visited by an aeroplane or something and 
then they found the ruins of an old pueblo. Did you 
ever think, John, that this cave of ours is the only 
gate to Red Mesa? If Vasquez blows that up with 
dynamite we’re all doomed to starve here—another 
Enchanted Mesa!” 

“Yaas,” sighed Big John, wearily. “But Vas¬ 
quez shuts hisself out’n his own mine, that way, 
though. An’ whar’s yore dynamite?” 

“He’ll have some. Sure about that,” said Sid, 
confidently. “A man doesn’t go mining without it 
nowadays. And then, here’s the dickens of it: he 

227 


RED MESA 


can’t do anything about this mine with us around, 
see? But, if he can shut us up here, all he’s got to 
do then is to hang around—^and let Nature do the 
rest! We’ll all starve. See? Diabolical idea, eh? 
But that’s the cold, cruel, Spanish logic of it, see?” 

‘^Nice hombre!” growled Big John. “Take me 
out thar, boys, whar I kin see thet cave mouth, and 
lay the old meat gun beside me—he won’t do no sech 
thing.” 

“You lie still!” Sid soothed him. “Honanta 
knows about it. He’s got scouts outlying all around 
the cave mouth.” 

“Take me out thar!” insisted Big John. “I ain’t 
trustin’ no Injuns whar you boys is concerned! 
Hyar! Put me under a brush shade at the top of 
that lava dam, whar I can see the cave mouth. 
’Twill do me good and give me a job of work!” he 
urged. 

Sid quieted him. “You couldn’t even lift a six- 
gun, now, old settler! Lie still. Just as soon as 
you can be moved we’ll set you out there, if it will 
ease your mind.” 

Big John sank back, satisfied, as most sick men 
are, with a promise. After a time he raised his 
head again. 


228 


GOLD VERSUS NATURE 


“Whar’s Scotty, Sid?'' 

‘T don't know," replied Sid, shortly. He shrugged 
his shoulders and remained silent, his eyes averted. 

Big John regarded him keenly for some time. 
“You boys been quarrelin', without yore old unkel 
to go settin' in the game?" he asked, trenchantly. 

“Yes. You see it's this way," broke out Sid im¬ 
pulsively. “Scotty's all for staking out this mine 
and filing a government claim on it. I couldn't get 
him to see it my way, so we—well, we had a row 
over it," said Sid. His voice told Big John how 
it hurt him to have anything come up between him¬ 
self and such an old chum as Scotty. 

“What's yore idee, son?" asked Big John curi¬ 
ously. 

“Haven't these Indians any rights?" burst out 
Sid impetuously. “Whose mine is it if not theirs? 
It's common property with them, though, just as are 
the beans they raise and the game they shoot. Along 
comes Scotty and thinks because he's a white man 
he has a right to stake a claim and take the whole 
thing for himself. And our government will give 
it to him, too—that's the pity of it! Did he find 
it ? I guess not! And it's their home, too 1 Are 
we going to turn them out?" 

229 


BED MESA 


The fire in Sid’s voice told Big John how hot had 
been that argument between the friends. All this 
was, no doubt, Sid’s side of it. 

‘Tf Honanta knew what Scotty was really set on 
doing not one of us would leave here alive,” went 
on Sid, bitterly. ‘T’ve a good mind to tell him! 
Anything, sooner than be a party to rank treachery 
like that 1” 

“Scotty’s mother’s pretty hard up, ain’t she, 
Sid?” asked Big John softly. 

“Ye-es; a little discomfort, maybe, until he can 
land a good job. But for that he’s going to turn 
this whole tribe out, to wander at the mercy of our 
government—and you know what that is!” 

“Sho! The mine’d pay enough to buy them a 
reservation big enough to support them all in the 
style in which they is accustomed to!” laughed Big 
John, weakly, “nawthin’ to it, son.” 

“That’s what Scotty says,” replied Sid. “Some 
day it will pay enough, maybe—if the promoters 
don’t skin him out of all his rights in the mine first. 
But meanwhile, what about these Indians and those 
white miners who will surely come here? Whisky, 
debauchery of their women, degradation of their 
young men—isn’t it always the story when our two 

230 


GOLD VERSUS NATURE 


races come together? How can you prevent it?’’ 
he demanded. 

Big John shook his head. It was all too perplex¬ 
ing to him, in his present weakened state. 

“Think of it, John!” went on Sid, raptly. “A tribe 
of Indians that has found peace at last! And now 
that they think they have nothing that the white 
man wants, along comes one of my race—and my 
own best friend at that—and he wants the silver 
and copper on their place! What’s the answer?— 
Move on! It’s always that! I told him I’d borrow 
money from my father for him, work for him all 
my life, if he’d only let this go and keep silent about 
Red Mesa forever.” 

“An’ what’d Scotty say to that?” 

“Oh, you know how ’tis 1 ” said Sid wearily. “His 
head’s sure stuffed with grandiose dreams! I ought 
to look at it in a big way, he says. Scotty thinks 
he’s a millionaire already. He talks about buying 
the tribe a great reservation somewhere, as if 
Honanta’d agree even to that. What he wants is 
just peace—^and isolation. Nowhere else would his 
people be free from corruption by every white rap¬ 
scallion who roams the state. And what mining com¬ 
pany would agree to setting aside any sum to pay 

231 


RED MESA 


them for this place? Isn’t it Scotty’s already, by 
his mere act of driving in a few pegs ?” 

‘‘Sho!” sighed Big John, sinking back again with 
weakness. The problem seemed too tough for him. 
After a silence his voice came dreamily from the 
cot. ^‘Gold! Sometimes, Sid, I think—our laws 
are—all wrong,” gasped Big John. “No other race 
but ours—permits one man—to own these big— 
nat’ral products—that ought to belong to the—^hull 
country—while thousands of us—starve. ’Tain’t 
right—son! ’Tain’t right!” 

His voice relapsed in utter weariness. Sid went 
out of the lodge, regretting that his own impetuos¬ 
ity had brought this miserable problem to Big John 
at such a time. 

Honanta met him at the doorway: “Can your 
big white friend speak?” he whispered eagerly. 

Sid wanted to kick himself for remorse! He had 
forgotten to ask Big John the most important ques¬ 
tion of all—what had become of Hano. Now it 
might be too late. The chief’s eyes told him of the 
long anxious strain of waiting his Indian friend had 
been through. Honanta had not slept during the 
night. A small group of braves, armed for the trail 
and each carrying a bag of pinole at his hip, told him 

2^2 


GOLD VERSUS NATURE 


that the search party was here, ready to go after 
Hano. 

He and Honanta reentered the medicine lodge and 
stood for some time silent and watchful. The still 
form of the patient moved not. Finally he turned 
over, the lines of irksome pain seaming his hawklike 
face. Slowly his eyes opened and fixed themselves 
on Sid. Then they turned on Honanta and studied 
him awhile. 

^Whar’d ye git him, Sid?’^ asked Big John slowly. 

“Hano’s father, Honanta, the man whose arrow 
saved you, John. Can you tell where you saw Hano 
last?” 

^‘Shore! He was fannin’ out through the Notch 
on yore pony, Sid. One jump ahead of a posse of 
greasers. Headed—he seemed to me, for Camino 
del Diablo,” said Big John, and again his eyes 
closed. 

Honanta faced Sid, his eyes gleaming with tri¬ 
umph. *Tt is good! My son gave himself to lead 
the enemy away from our home! He has done 
well,” he whispered. ‘‘Come! We go.” 

Out in the fearful sand dunes to the north rode 
Sid and Honanta with a few of the Apaches. 
Mounts there were for them all, for Scotty had found 

233 


RED MESA 


their own ponies unmolested and a few of the Mexi¬ 
can horses had been caught. It was a dead and deso¬ 
late region, with scowling black mountains all about 
and the sand burying them high up on their flanks. 
Into this waste Hano had ridden, the flying hoofs 
of the guerrillas following him as the spurted sand 
tracks showed. On and on after these tracks 
Honanta’s party plodded. There was no water here, 
no vegetation, nothing. By midday they had fol¬ 
lowed the trail north toward the Camino del Diablo. 

Then a cry came from Sid, for far beyond he had 
spied a lone, low object lying on the stony waste. 
Empty cartridges lying along the route told that the 
guerrillas had begun to shoot here. Riding nearer, 
the object developed into a horse, lying dead and 
swollen in the sun. Sid gritted his teeth, for it was 
his own pony. 

“Poor Pinto! They must have shot him at long 
range. Here are Hano’s moccasin prints, though, 
running.” 

Honanta looked down at them in silent musing. 
Then his eyes swept on ahead. Flying like a deer, 
Hano had led them on until he had gained the shelter 
of some distant rocks, the beginning of the black, 
bare, and waterless Tule Mountains. 


234 


GOLD VERSUS NATURE 


The party rode on. Soon the horse tracks 
showed that the guerrillas had given him up. They 
could do nothing in the rocks with this Indian, and 
being on the wrong side of the border evidently had 
not been at all to their liking. In a sudden turn 
they had swept off down the Camino del Diablo 
toward Represa Tanks. 

‘T take it they’ll all go back to Mexico, Honanta,” 
said Sid. ^‘They saw nothing of Red Mesa, and I 
think we’ve seen the last of them/' 

Honanta shrugged his shoulders: ^‘My Hanoi 
We must follow on!” he urged. 

The Apaches now dismounted and began track¬ 
ing. But, once in the rocks, Hano had been too 
keen even for them. Not a further trace could be 
found. He might have gone anywhere, and wider 
and wider circles came across not a single footprint. 

‘‘Gee! I wish we’d brought Ruler!” exclaimed 
Sid, vexedly. “Scotty has him to-day, trying to 
track Vasquez. While that scoundrel is at large 
nothing is safe.” 

Honanta seemed relieved. “My son is safe!” he 
declared. “He’ll reach Tule Tanks where there is 
water at this time of the year. Fear not! He will 

235 


RED MESA 


return some day. We go back to Red Mesa and 
keep watch.” 

It was evening before they rode up that vast sandy 
valley headed by the lava apron which flowed out 
of Red Mesa standing high on the mountain like 
some medieval cathedral. Up on its brink Sid noted 
a brush shade with a figure lying under it. A hand 
rose and waved down to them as they dismounted 
and tethered the horses where there was feed. 

‘'Good old John—he’s had his own way!” laughed 
Sid. “On the job again! Must be getting better, 
all right. Those are wonderful herbs of yours, 
chief!” 

He found that Scotty had already returned with 
Ruler. The intercourse between the two chums was 
now strained and lacked their usual cordial affec¬ 
tion, but Sid learned that the dog had been able 
to track “that Vasquez,” as Big John called him, 
over the mountain and out into the Pass, where he 
had captured a stray horse and ridden off south¬ 
wards. 

“That means he’ll spend the night at Papago 
Tanks,” concluded Scotty. “If we get up a party 
to go there to-night, we’ll take him.” 

“I doubt it,” retorted Sid. “To-night’s the very 

236 


GOLD VERSUS NATURE 


night he’ll attempt something against us, don’t you 
worry! We’ve got to stay here, on guard, and keep 
a sharp lookout on the cave mouth.” 

“Why?” asked Scotty, mystified at Sid’s words. 

“The fellow brought dynamite, sure as we stand 
here, Scotty. He could lock us all up in Red Mesa 
if he could shatter our cave with a stick of it. 
That’s the only entrance, and the walls are unscal¬ 
able.” 

Scotty looked surprised. “By George, that’s 
so!” he exclaimed at length, nervously. 

He fell silent, and Sid could see that his engi¬ 
neer’s mind was already at work planning some 
scheme to build a way out in case Vasquez should 
succeed. They both went over to where Big John 
lay with Blaze beside him. The big cowman’s eyes 
were bright, and he greeted them cheerily. 

“You-all give this old bird plenty of corn pone 
and Montana chicken (bacon), an’ he’ll surprise ye, 
boys!” he chirped. “Ain’t no one goin’ to pull no 
Enchanted Mesa stuff on us while the old meat 
gun’s handy 1 ” He reached down his hand to where 
the .35 lay on the rock beside him. “This-yer’s a 
good job! Pretty soft! Hed a swell time per¬ 
suadin’ them Injuns to fix me up hyar, though.” 

237 


RED MESA 


“We’ll stay here to-night, too, John,” said Sid. 
“A few extra rifles on watch won’t hurt.” 

Far below the location of the cave mouth showed 
as a mere black crease in the lava as seen from their 
vantage point. Apache scouts were on guard there, 
Sid knew, but a stealthy creep, a sudden rush in the 
dark, the hurling of a bundle of dynamite sticks they 
could not prevent. Only keen eyesight and the alert 
senses of a dog could give warning. 

He suggested to Scotty to take Ruler down 
there, which the other was not slow to do, for Scotty 
acted nervous and constrained as if his conscience 
troubled him. He, too, was fighting a battle with 
himself—^and apparently he dreaded the recommence¬ 
ment of any argument over the Red Mesa mine, for 
the meaning of this place was slowly growing on 
him. Yet it was hard to give up wealth, a career, 
success as a mining engineer—for an ideal! 

The Apaches went through their usual sunset wor¬ 
ship that evening. It filled Sid with a mournful 
regret. If only this life of theirs could go on un¬ 
molested ! But it would be impossible, unless some 
great change were to come over Scotty. You could 
not change people! They were what they were. 
Scotty meant well; his point of view was the usual 

238 


GOLD VERSUS NATURE 


thing. The mine belonged to him and to Sid; the 
Indians they could provide for elsewhere, buy a 
reservation for them in a far better locality than 
this—nothing to it! 

But Sid knew that the problem went deeper than 
that. Its isolation was the real value of this place, its 
real importance to the Indians. Nowhere else would 
they be free from contact with the whites; nowhere 
else be free from the inevitable temptations of civi¬ 
lization. Honanta would look at it that way, Sid 
knew, if all the ins and outs of this situation were to 
be explained to him, and he would never consent to 
his band leaving Red Mesa for any exchange what¬ 
ever. 

Later the girl Nahla came to Sid and he was able 
to comfort her with news of Hano. That he had 
not broken his honor but instead had risked his life 
for the tribe and made a splendid coup thereby, Sid 
could see filled her with a rapture that only he could 
appreciate. She left him, singing softly a prayer 
of thanksgiving to the Great Mystery, and Sid went 
on with his watch. 

All the desert lay silent and grand and mysterious 
under the slow-moving stars as he kept his vigil, 
ruminating over it all. He wished that his father, 

239 


RED MESA 


Colonel Colvin, could be brought here. Honanta 
would do whatever those wise old gray hairs thought 
best. Honanta owed to Colonel Colvin his life, and 
to an Indian that debt is never paid. There must 
be a good way out of all this. Colonel Colvin, with 
his wide knowledge of Indian affairs and his broad 
sympathies, was the man to point it out. 

It was somewhere in the dread hours of the dead 
of night when the dog Blaze whined softly and Sid 
could see that he was peering downward, his ears 
cocked to alert attention. Sid followed the line of 
his gaze as best he could. Over there near the base 
of the mountain there was—something! No man 
in his senses would attempt to climb over that moun¬ 
tain in the dark through all its bristly cactus and 
choyas, Sid reflected. The only practicable route 
would be along its base, where the sand would deaden 
hoof-beats and a man could approach unseen. 

But an Airedale can see in the dark far better 
than humans, better even than a hound. Ruler had 
given no sign below, but Blaze had evidently become 
suspicious. Nature had not given him the hound's 
nose, but she had compensated by an eyesight equal 
to a cat’s. 

A faint grunt came from Big John as his hand 

240 


GOLD VERSUS NATURE 


crept down to the rifle below the cot. ‘‘Watch yore- 
self, Sid! Blazie boy, he sees somethin' out thar 
an’ don’t ye ferget it!” he warned. “That Vasquez 
is cornin’, shore as shootin’.” 

Sid strained his eyes. The blackness of the valley 
was impenetrable. Once a shock of alarm thrilled 
through him as a low humped object, half discerned 
in the black shadows of the mountain base, seemed 
not where it was when he had last tried to make it 
out but nearer. But as he looked the blurred form 
appeared stationary, immovable as one of the 
boulders. Yet, after a time, when his eyes grew 
fatigued with the strain, it was gone! 

Instantly he raised his rifle and an impulse to give 
the alarm overpowered him. But he stifled it, peer¬ 
ing with all his might. Better let Vasquez come 
nearer than frighten him otf now, otherwise, it would 
all have to be repeated later. 

A brooding stillness kept up. The far-off howls 
of coyotes came from over the mountains where 
they were no doubt fighting over the carcasses of 
those slaughtered sheep. None were around here, 
with that ghastly feast spread. Sid waited for he 
know not what to develop, finger on trigger, hand 
on Blaze’s back to quiet the eager dog. 

241 


RED MESA 


Then a hoarse growl rumbled In Blaze’s furry 
throat! He rose unsteadily to his feet and a bitter 
snarl bared his teeth. Some unfamiliar taint in the 
air had now come to his nostrils. Sid looked down 
alert, finger on trigger. A movement on the cot 
told him that Big John, too, had picked up the .35 
and was peering keenly below. But they could see 
nothing. Nothing moved. All the slope and the 
sands below it was as silent and inscrutable as death. 

Then a throaty bellow came from Ruler below. A 
bow twanged in the darkness, and there came the 
noise of a sudden rush of blurred forms in the night. 
Big John turned half on his side and his rifle rose. 

^‘Gosh, fer a light!” Sid heard him mutter. 

Ruler’s challenging bark was roaring out now. 
The dog had rushed down the slope. And, as if to 
answer Big John, the sudden flare of a watch-fire 
sprang up. 

It showed the Apaches crouching and shooting 
their arrows—but it showed also a figure in a flying 
serape climbing rapidly up the cleft toward the cave 
mouth. A sputtering fire shot out sparks; then, as 
the bellowing roar of Big John’s .35 rent the night, 

there came a sizzling arc of fire, followed at once 

242 


GOLD VERSUS NATURE 


by the tremendous, shattering detonation of dyna¬ 
mite ! 

Red Mesa rocked to its foundations. A long- 
drawn subterranean moan came from the bowels of 
the rocks, a growl like a distant thunder—then si¬ 
lence! Sid had gotten one glimpse of a man being 
blown to bits in the white glare of that explosion 
which seemed to spew cannonlike out of the bowels 
of the mountain, then his eyes saw nothing, blinded 
for an instant by the intensity of it. 

‘'Yah! Greaser!” gritted Big John’s voice in ris¬ 
ing intensity of feeling. “Ye done it—curse ye!” 
Then Sid heard him fall back with a weary, hopeless 
sigh. 

Pitchy darkness! a dreadful, tense and tragic si¬ 
lence! a stunning, appalling silence, wherein all the 
world held its breath and Sid on the ledge felt his 
senses grow numb before the portentous import of 
it! Had Vasquez succeeded? 


CHAPTER XII 


OUT OF THE DESERT 


j 4 S Sid’s scattered wits returned to con- 
nected thought, after the first few mo- 
ments following that stunning detonation, 
his mind and his hopes went out first to Scotty. 
How could he and the Apaches down there have 
survived, right in the storm center of that explosion? 
For a time he dared not even call out, nor was there 
the least sound of human beings alive down there to 
reassure him. Not even a faint groan came up to 
his listening ears. 

Still there was at least a ray of hope. That white 
glare of the explosion had come out like the flare 
from the mouth of a cannon. The tunnel, in fact, 
was a vast stone cannon. Vasquez, true to Sid’s 
diagnosis of the Latin mind, had planned his coup 
logically, had thrown the bundle of dynamite sticks 
fair and true right into the mouth of the cave where 
it would do the most damage. But he had not 

244 


OUT OF THE DESERT 

reckoned on the laws of mechanics, the immutable 
principles of action and reaction. For the forces of 
that explosion had blown right back upon him who 
had thrown the charge. It had rent him to bits, 
and Sid had seen enough to be sure that the victim 
had been the rash Vasquez himself. 

Was there not a hope, then, that Scotty and the 
Apaches, standing to one side of the direct blast, 
had survived it? A man can stand near the muzzle 
of a twelve-inch naval gun and yet not be hurt, be¬ 
yond the temporary shock to ears and nerves. 

In spite of the appalling stillness which kept up, 
Sid found courage at last to call out. 

‘‘Scotty! Leslie, old chum!—Are you still alive ?” 
his voice quavered out into the night. 

There was a moment of anxious waiting. Then: 
“Hi!—Don’t worry, Sid! We’re all right!” called 
up Scotty’s voice in a peculiar dead inflection, for 
his ears were evidently numb. “The thing went oif 
like a cannon. Only Vasquez himself, who was in 
the direct line of it, got killed. We’re all shaken 
up some, but nothing serious.” 

Sid whooped with joy. Never till then did he 
realize how deep was his affection for Scotty—that 

245 


EED MESA 


enduring bond tHat a mere temporary difference 
could affect only superficially. 

‘‘The cave mouth’s shattered, but I think ^ve can 
pick it loose,” came Scotty’s voice more strongly 
after a time. 

Presently the watch-fire flared up again and there 
came sounds of men heaving and working and the 
crash of stones tumbling down the lava apron. 

Then: “Yeaay—Sid! . . . Listen! She’s all 
right! She’s clear! I’m coming right up!” yelled 
Scotty’s voice, and there were muffled voices of men 
entering the cave. 

Honanta and Scotty joined them on the apron 
ledge shortly after. Sid felt a deep restful sense of 
thankfulness now that it was all over. The menace 
of starvation for Red Mesa was gone; Vasquez, the 
only other person who knew about the mine, could 
do no more harm. He wanted to sleep now, and 
sleep well. After that, a last appeal to Scotty in 
which Big John, he was sure, would join him. 
After mutual congratulations had been exchanged 
he got his bed roll and laid it out beside Big John’s 
cot, thoroughly tired and relaxed. The cowman was 
sleeping peacefully. After that glad hail of Scotty’s, 
Nurse Nature had claimed him immediately! 

246 


OUT OF THE DESERT 


It was not until morning that the real disaster 
to Red Mesa became known. A cry from one of the 
squaws awoke Sid. He rolled sleepily out of his 
blankets, to find her pointing excitedly at the lava 
basin of the tank. It was half empty! 

Down at least six feet below the rim was now 
the level of the water, as Sid stared at it unbeliev¬ 
ingly. It was all too cruel to sense at first; too 
great an irony of fate for the human mind to com¬ 
prehend. But, after the first interval of stupefac¬ 
tion, Sid understood what had happened. That ex¬ 
plosion had opened a fissure in the lava bottom of 
the tank—^and Red Mesa was slowly bleeding to 
death I A rush to the rim of the basin confirmed it. 
There, down along one edge of the apron, a thin 
trickle of water was flowing silent, unceasingly 
sapping away the life blood of his ideal Indian com¬ 
munity, giving their precious indispensable water 
to those thirsty sands of the desert drinking it up 
far below! 

What a thing is puny man! Armed with the un¬ 
limited strength of dynamite, one man had done all 
this; destroyed at a blow all living things that flour¬ 
ished here, upset the huge yet delicate balance of 

247 


RED MESA 


Nature, driven into a wandering exile a once happy 
people. 

A great sob rose in Sid^s throat as what all this 
meant came over him in an overwhelming wave of 
emotion. What Scotty might have done in leading 
here the slow advance of civilization, that villain 
Vasquez had brought about in one mad moment of 
callous cupidity. Sid ground his teeth in helpless 
rage. Then he turned and raced for Scotty^s bunk 
up near the mine. He, the engineer—^he could stop 
this catastrophe if any one could! 

Already, as he passed, he could see the bottom of 
the tank, dim and muddy below the fast vanishing 
level of the water. Around its edges Apache women 
were wailing and wringing their hands, some draw¬ 
ing water while any yet remained. Honanta and 
his braves had gathered and stood looking down at 
the tank in stolid perplexity, helpless, knowing not 
how or why this cruel thing was happening, nor 
what to do. 

‘‘Wake, Scotty! Quick! Our water’s all going 
from the tank! Help us, old man—hurry!” shouted 
Sid wildly, shaking him. 

Scotty sat up, and immediately his eyes fell on 

248 


OUT OF THE DESERT 


water level, now far down in the lava basin, the 
pool itself shrunk to half its normal size. 

“That explosion must have cracked a fissure open 
somewhere, last night,'' said Sid. “Only look, Les!" 
he groaned. 

Scotty pulled on his boots rapidly. “No use try¬ 
ing to stop it from below, Sid," he declared with the 
sure knowledge of the engineer. “The water head 
would burst any dam we could build down there. 
We've got to find the crack in the bottom up here 
and stop it. All hands into the tank!" he cried 
energetically. 

Sid waved his arm to Honanta and his bucks to 
jump in and join in the search for the leak, but they 
stood back, arms folded, eying him gloomily. 
Childlike, in many ways, is the Indian mind! Be¬ 
fore anything whose cause they cannot reason out 
they stand helpless. Only Niltci followed Sid and 
Scotty into the water, and that from blind obedience. 

“Hunt for a hole in the tank bottom, Niltci!— 
Hunt for all your worth!" ordered Sid, handing 
him a stick as they waded about the pool. Its water 
was now less than three feet deep, the bottom smooth 
and slippery with mud. Somewhere down there a 
crevice, maybe only an inch wide, was drawing down 

249 


RED MESA 


the water—^but where! The bottom was smooth and 
hard as flint; nowhere did the searching sticks find 
any crack that had no bottom. 

Scotty’s face grew more and more concerned as 
they reached the end of the tank away from the lava 
outflow. Here it grew deeper and the bottom was 
all ragged pot holes of scoriated lava. Here gases 
had forced their way out from below while yet the 
molten stuff was soft. His stick felt down into 
deep jagged holes and could tell him nothing as to 
whether a fissure existed at the bottom of them or 
not. 

In spite of his forced air of cheerfulness the out¬ 
look grew more and more hopeless. Somewhere 
down here was the leak, but where? Finally he 
came to a deep jagged pot hole which swallowed his 
stick and more—down to the limit of his armpits. 
He sent Niltci for a pole, his face drawn with 
anxiety, for failure as an engineer, utter and com¬ 
plete, was now staring him in the face. When it 
arrived it went down into that pot-hole its full 
depth, to touch only ragged scoriations of lava, at 
the bottoms of any one of which might be the 
fissure. 

“Sid, we’re done!’’ cried Scotty, hopelessly, tears 

250 


OUT OF THE DESERT 


starting from his eyes. “Only concrete and lots 
of it can fix this! Oh, Sid, I’d give anything in the 
world to be able to help them!” wept Scotty, prod¬ 
ding futilely with his pole in a mechanical effort to 
relieve the stress in his mind. “They must all go! 
All this must die!”—waving his arm around at the 
green and flowering things that made the valley 
gracious. “You were right, Sid! This is the ob¬ 
ject lesson I needed—gorry, but I needed it in all 
my visionary pride! This is what I would have 
done to Honanta’s people, only in another way. The 
pity of it! I see it now—I don’t want their mine— 
at such a price!” 

“Isn’t there anything we can do?'^ barked Sid 
rebelliously. “Throw in rocks—-dirt—skins— any¬ 
thing to stop it!” 

Scotty shook his head mournfully. 

“We’d be too late—look at the water now 1 ” 

At once the hopelessness of it all overtook even 
Sid’s buoyant nature. The water was now only 
two feet deep and a wide area of glistening mud 
swept down from the brink. The edges of it had 
already dried in the desert air. 

Sid waded out and faced Honanta, shaking his 
head solemnly. 


251 


RED MESA 


‘‘My son, why did the white man do this cruel 
thing?” asked the chief, his deep voice filled with 
gentle rebuke. “My people must wander forth, now 
—I know not where.” 

“Because he wanted your mine, Honanta!” gritted 
Sid passionately, over the injustice of it all. “To 
get it for himself he hoped to lock us all up here, 
to die of starvation, like the people of the En¬ 
chanted Mesa. And now look how it has turned 
out! I stand here—ashamed, Elonanta—ashamed 
of my race!” 

''Take your mine! It is always so when the white 
man finds gold! All this must die! The red man 
must go!” 

“No!” barked Scotty wildly through his tears. 
“No, chief! You won^t have to go! Concrete can 
fix it! As soon as the water is gone we shall get at 
the crack and seal it. We’ll mend the basin and then 
leave you in peace forever. I promise it, here and 
now! Never, never shall any mention of your mine 
cross my lips!” 

“My son, many, many rains it took to fill that 
tank! My people were careful to use each year no 
more than the Great Mystery saw fit to send us. We 
have done no wrong, yet is the face of the Great 

252 


OUT OF THE DESERT 

Mystery hid behind a cloud. We must go forth!” 
sighed Honanta. 

He turned to his old men and gave an order. 
Immediately the whole village became the scene of 
busy preparations for the march. Sid watched them 
wdth tears in his eyes, while Scotty protested vainly 
to Honanta. Where could they go? To Tinajas 
Atlas, perhaps, there to hide in some rocky fastness 
of the desert, forced to fetch water from long dis¬ 
tances and sooner or later to be discovered at the 
tank by our border rangers, rounded up and sent 
back to the reservation. 

It must not be! He and Scotty had brought all 
this upon them; it was their responsibility to see to 
it that another and a better home should be found 
for them. Perhaps Scotty was right, in the long 
run. If they could retain control of this mine and 
operate it successfully, there would be money enough 
to repay Honanta forever. 

By noon the village reported ready for the march. 
Men, women, and children, they would go forth on 
foot into the pitiless desert, and somehow, through 
untold sufferings, incredible endurance, would make 
that march to a new home—but it could never, never, 

253 


EED MESA 


approach the freedom and peace of this spot, the 
Arms of the Great Mystery! 

Towards its high red walls Honanta now raised 
his hands in silent prayer and farewell. Soon it 
would become a sun-baked, scorched, arid ruin, the 
home of saguarro and choya, a place that no one 
but white men would want. With its empty, bare 
and mud-caked basin, that once held smiling and 
life-giving water—Red Mesa was dead. 

Sid looked on, so overcome with sympathy that 
he had not given their own problems a thought. 
Yet, with the last of the water, they too would face 
the pitiless scourge of thirst. Big John would have 
to be moved to Papago Tanks, somehow. But all 
that could wait. 

^‘Good-by, white boy!” said Honanta, coming up 
to grip his hand strongly. ‘‘Tell your father that, 
some day, I will visit him—when my people are 
provided for.” 

He turned to give the order to march. 

Who sneers at coincidences? They happen to us 
daily, in those abrupt meetings of chance whose 
obscure workings of cause and effect we know noth¬ 
ing of, nor can trace. One happened now; for, as 
Honanta had raised his head to give the order, at 

254 


OUT OF THE DESERT 


that instant there came a hail from Big John on 
his cot on the apron brink. 

“Hi, Sid!—Say!—Hyar comes yore daddy !— 
An’ that Apache feller!” he sang out. For a moment 
Sid stood looking at him in sheer amazement. Had 
Big John gone delirious? How and why had Colonel 
Colvin come here ? But if it was really, truly so- 

“Wait, Honanta! Wait!—You shall see my 
father, and your own son, sooner than any of us 
expected!—Wait!” cried Sid, running after the chief 
to seize his arm. 

With Sid, unable to comprehend how or why his 
father could actually be here, they went together 
along the empty tank to the apron brim. 

But it was true! Down there on the sands of the 
valley two riders were coming, and Honanta gave 
a great cry as his keen eyes recognized the smaller 
of the two. 

“Hanoi—My son! My sonT he yelled, his stoic 
Indian reserve broken down by the intensity of the 
moment. 

Sid waved energetically to the other rider whose 
thick-set figure told that he was an older man, un¬ 
doubtedly Colonel Colvin himself. 

Presently a hail came from them both, and then 

255 



RED MESA 


the younger man led on, showing the older one how 
to reach the cave mouth. After a tense, excited in¬ 
terval of waiting Colonel Colvin issued out of the 
medicine lodge and ran toward Sid. Hano stood by 
the lodge, the girl Nahla already passionately cling¬ 
ing to him. Honanta stalked toward his son as all 
the tribe stood by and watched. 

‘‘Gad!—Sid, my boy, weVe had some ride!” burst 
out Colonel Colvin bluffly, as Sid went to his arms 
and Scotty gripped at his extended hand. “This 
Apache boy, Hano, found me at the ranch and told 
me you-all were in trouble. Seems that he escaped 
from some Mexicans out of the desert and reached 
the railroad at Tacna. There he sold all he had and 
bought a ticket to our station, Colvin’s, on the main 
line. ‘Knew my name, long time’ is all I could get 
out of him. But it was plain enough that you were 
in trouble down here and he wanted me to come 
quickly, so we took the train to the A jo Mines, 
bought horses and rode here.—Hey! What the na¬ 
tion’s the matter with our John?” he broke off sud¬ 
denly as his eyes fell on the occupant of the cot. 

“Oh, I jest nat’rally stopped a leetle lead in a 
fight we had with the greasers hyarabouts. Colonel,” 
grinned Big John. “Jest hed to, sir!—Them durned 

256 


OUT OF THE DESERT 


boys won’t be satisfied till they kills this ole puncher, 
nohow, Fm thinkin’!” he grimaced whimsically. 
“Lots doin’ ’round hyar. Colonel! Let them boys 
tell you all about it.” 

He sank back happily while Sid told him the 
whole story of the Red Mesa plaque, of the trip to 
Pinacate and then of Vasquez’s diabolical attempt 
and the consequent loss of all their water. 

Colonel Colvin listened sympathetically. Before 
Sid had finished he felt a touch on his elbow and 
turned to find Honanta facing him. 

I 

“Does my white father remember the massacre 
of Apache Cave—and this?” the chief asked, his 
voice vibrating with emotion as his hand touched the 
gold double eagle dangling on his chest. 

“Yes—a bitter memory, chief!” replied Colonel 
Colvin. “The Army does not talk of it much. 
Curious!” he exclaimed, looking at the coin and 
evidently searching back in his memory. “Why, I 
was in that fight myself!—I remember that coin— 
or a piece just like it—I gave one to a poor squaw 
whom we found badly wounded with a baby in her 
arms. She was the only one left alive in all those 
heaps of slain Apaches. Gad, but that massacre was 

257 


RED MESA 


a devilish piece of business for the Army to have to 
do!” 

‘‘I am that baby, my white father I” said Honanta, 
drawing himself up dramatically. “The sole living 
survivor of Apache Cave—and unconquered! My 
heart told me that this young man, whose name was 
also Colvin”—indicating Sid—“was your son. 
Therefore I spared him, when my old men advised 
that he be slain, since he had discovered this our 
refuge.” 

He waved a fringed arm around at the mighty 
walls of Red Mesa. “This was our home!” he 
declaimed. “No more! The white man came, and 
he took our water. All of it! Our home is dead. 
We must go!” 

“Where will you go, chief?” asked the Colonel, 
eying Honanta keenly. 

“I know not,” said Honanta, wearily. “Some¬ 
where out into the desert, where my people can find 
peace again.” 

“Listen, chief!” said Colonel Colvin earnestly. 
“Where I live is called the Grand Canon of the Gila. 
.Your people knew it well, once. High above us 
towers a mighty peak, all orange in the glow of the 
sun, and across it a great band of pure white. That 

258 


OUT OF THE DESERT 


peak you have heard of, I know, chief declared 
Colonel Colvin, and Honanta nodded in confirma¬ 
tion. ^Tn the valley of our river are timbered ranges, 
where deer and bear and turkey run wild and trout 
fill the streams. Across from us are steep precipices 
along which leads the old Apache Trail—the home 
of your fathers, chief. I own much land there, 
plenty for all of us. This mine the boys tell me of 
in your Red Mesa will buy more. If that golden 
double eagle means any obligation to you, chief, will 
you come to my place with your whole band—^there 
to live as did your fathers ?” 

Honanta hesitated. His eyes beamed with pleas¬ 
ure, yet a troubled, doubtful expression in them told 
Sid that he was wondering how long our government 
would let them stay there. Better than the reserva¬ 
tion the freedom of the desert! 

‘'That orange mountain was once a sign of the 
Great Mystery to your people, chief,” went on the 
Colonel, his voice still more persuasive and com¬ 
pelling. ‘Tt stands there yet, a sign that His ways 
are unchanging, His mercy everlasting. Come! 
There is room there for all of us!—and I will see 
to it myself that our government grants you free- 

259 


RED MESA 


dom—as it has already done for the Mohave 
Apaches.” 

Honanta’s eyes widened at that last! It was news 
to him that the policy of our government had in any 
way liberalized! Then he stretched out his hand, 
his eyes glowing. 

‘‘My white father is kind! He is noble-hearted 
and just!” he exclaimed. “Would that he and my 
own father, Chief Chuntz, had known each other 
otherwise than over a rifle barrel! I owe you my 
life, Colonel Colvin; you have brought me back my 
son. I thank the Great Mystery that He whispered 
in my heart to spare yours! In the name of my 
people, I accept your offer. Colonel, gratefully!” 

“Good!” exclaimed the bluff old colonel, heartily, 
as their hands clasped. 

One by one, family by family, the Apaches bade 
farewell to their homes and then descended the cave 
tunnel. A procession followed made up of Sid and 
Scotty, Colonel Colvin and Niltci, carrying Big John 
on an improvised stretcher. Two horses with the 
Colonel and Sid riding them, bore a pole litter for 
Big John thereafter; the rest were laden with every 
jar of water the Apaches possessed. And so the 
cavalcade set forth north into the desert. 

260 


OUT OF THE DESERT 


Sid turned to look back for the last time at Red 
Mesa. High and lifted up, its walls rose in huge 
flanks out of the mountain side, glaring in the burn¬ 
ing sun. Soon there would be no life there, no 
luxuriant root hold for green living plants, no happy 
home for a simple people. When Scotty got his com¬ 
pany organized—and he did, in due time, but that is 
beyond the province of this story—there would be 
a scene of sweating activity there, ore cars coming 
and going, men and burros toiling, the great tank 
repaired and giving water to them all. 

But Sid did not want to think of that. Rather 
he would like always to remember it as the one place 
he knew where once Indians had lived as their fore¬ 
fathers had, long before the white man came—in 
simple, reverent faith in the Great Mystery, in the 
simple needs of a free people, in the simple, sure, old 
foundations of Indian morality—Courage, Honor, 
Truth, Chastity. 

Three days later they reached A jo Mines. The 
company lent the Colonel a train of empty ore cars 
and the railroad took them to the main line. Thence 
the Colonel led Honanta and his people to a land of 
mighty mountain ranges, of green alfalfa fields 
strung along a rushing river dominated by beetling 

261 


RED MESA 


crags, of herds of fat cattle grazing in a land of 
plenty. And here, under the protection of the name 
Colvin, in the timbered hills of their forefathers, 
Honanta and the Yellow Bear clan of the Apache 
at last found peace. 

(0 


THE END 



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AT HILLSDALE HIGH 
By Earl Reed Silvers 

There is as much to write about in a small high 
school as of a prep school or college, as Mr. Silvers 
shows in this story of athletics and school spirit. 

SCOUTING WITH MAD ANTHONY 
By Everett T. Tomlinson 

The experiences of two boys during General Wayne’s 
campaign against the Indians of what was then the 
Northwest Territory. A stirring page from our his¬ 
tory vividly presented for boys. 

THE RADIO DETECTIVES SERIES 
By A. Hyatt Verrill 

Four stories, which may be read separately, in which 
the latest developments in Radio are continually used 
in tracking down a remarkable criminal band. “The 
Radio Detectives,” “The Radio Detectives Under the 
Sea,” “The Radio^ Detectives Southward Bound,” “The 
Radio Detectives in the Jungle.” 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
New- York London 













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